Losing to Win

This was the quote from my Men's Devotional yesterday:
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Never allow difficult times to overpower the glory and omnipotence of God. He triumphs far above all - even when you go through the darkest valley.

It brought back memories of my long ride back to ATL after I got the news my son had died. Man, that was the lowest point of my life, every part of me shook with grief and regret flooded my mind that maybe I could have done this or done that or just been there to prevent it. Some of you have been there, too. It was during those times that my relationship with the Lord grew even stronger through the darkness.

And when I read that quote it reminded that almost every triumph in the Bible was after a loss. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Peter -you can rattle off an infinite number of people who experienced this. Then of course, everyone counted the Crucifixion as a loss, there was much grief, until the Resurrection that is, then it became apparent to the disciples and to us today that there must be a.......

Losing To Win.

A coach of some kind once said we must learn how to lose to learn how to win and in our daily walk out of addiction and trouble or the worst kind, we realize that unless we learn how to cope with loss (whether self inflicted or not), we can never appreciate the winning. It may get to a point where we ask God "Can we just stop the pain and get to the gain?" but it is in the battlegrounds of loss that we learn who we are, how much fight we have in us, and what we believe.

Think how hard it was for those disciples to understand what just happened with Jesus on the cross, and look at how many scattered when their faith was on the line. But they regrouped, they received power to go on and they fought until the end for what they believed. So when we buckle, when we wonder, when we fear, take heart because Jesus gave us some words of comfort:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe in me also.  John 14:1

Because as that same devotional points out, do not allow sudden evil and bad news to upset you and shake you. We are still who we say we are and God is still who he says he is no matter what happens. Nothing can change this, not even death.

Sometimes life is just life and we have to experience Losing To eventually Win!