Today's Devotional

October 24, 2003

Subject:  A Hard Loss 

Philippians 3:8 - "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,"

I was in Texas almost two weeks ago and suffered through viewing the tragic defeat of my favorite college football team, the Texas Longhorns.  My brother Craig is a Longhorn alumnus so the loss was exceptionally painful for him.  It was one of those games that you talk about for the entire next week, shaking your head in disappointment.  After the game in an unrelated conversation, Craig began to talk about deciding where he might next practice medicine and since we had been talking football just a few minutes earlier, when he said, "I think I want to leave Texas," I replied, "boy, you're taking that loss kinda hard aren't you?"

I think that was the same weekend that the Chicago Cubs were eliminated from the major league baseball playoffs and my coworker came back to work to talk about how he found his wife, who was from Chicago, crying upstairs after the game.  Boy that's taking a loss really hard.  

I thought about these things and I thought about how I felt about some games that I've seen and some that I've even played in.  What I've realized is, how hard I take a loss is determined by how much I've invested up front.  Even when merely spectating, we invest time and emotion in support of our team.  That's what makes the loss so difficult to take.  We can keep player and team statistics, find out what's been going on with the coaching staff and with the players and we invest our resources to get team paraphernalia, such as my Texas Longhorns t-shirt that I bought to wear just to watch the game.  After we've done all of that, we feel that we are at one with the team and a loss for them is a loss for us.  We are bound.

It's the same way with Christ.  If we invest all of our resources in knowing Him and finding out about Him, then we form that same type of bond.  If we find out that His desire (gameplan) is to reach a certain lost soul and we see that soul perish without coming to the knowledge of Christ, then it's as though we've lost.  A loss for Him equates to a loss for us.  

So there are lots of games going on in the world, which ones give you the feeling of "a hard loss."  Well it will be determined by where you've invested your resources.  It's a tough question for me; do I feel more loss because the Longhorns went down or do I feel more loss at the passing sinner?  I need to put it all in perspective and remember that bumper sticker, "The Longhorns Are My Team But Jesus Is My King."  Jesus Christ crucified--now that was a hard loss!

Carlen