I lost the duel.
Recently, my fourteen-year-old grandson finally eclipsed me in a death match we like to call ping-pong.
For the better part of three years, he and I have played countless games together and, at the beginning, I usually bested him.
As time, talent, and development would have it, I declined while he progressed. Thus, the cruel nature of defeat for me while victory reigned supreme in him.
Why do I mention this?
In every person’s life there comes a moment of realization—an epiphany that ushers in a new mindset or understanding.
Think with me. What are seminal events that changed your life?
Perhaps the death of a loved one shifted the reality you knew.
Maybe your own health began to fail. Disease, aging, and calamity forced you down and forced you to think in a pensive manner that previously you never had.
Even worse actions by others may have victimized you and your faith and trust in people vanished like a vapor in the wind.
We can react in a host of ways to these events—when we are no longer in control of outcomes. It is when life bests us and we fail to know how to respond.
Some shake their fist at God and blame him for their plight.
Others slip into a form of complicated anxiety, depression, and grief, and never recover.
Still more, vigorously proselytize against all that is humane and good, becoming Sméagol-like souls lost in a fruitless crusade to own their precious hatred.
May I propose an alternative to these?
Imagine for a moment that God is pulling for you and wants a role in your life. What would that look like?
Fortunately, we do not have to guess.
The Apostle Peter writes to a stranded church body these comforting words, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Those undergoing hardship needed encouragement. So do we.
God, it seems is not only aware of our struggles and trials, but he actively wishes to come along side us in a mysterious but manifest manner.
The question then is one of invitation. Are we willing to lean into God’s benevolence, or do we shun it believing that this assertion of his care is nonsense?
Of this we can be sure, at some point we will have little choice. Some things only God can mitigate.
My counsel is, have a little faith. If God created you, he has skin in the game. Like a loving parent or trusted friend, he is there.
What I know of my ping-pong experience is this; I have crossed over into underdog. Without the help of God, which I doubt he would bother in this situation, I am likely to continue to lose.
But when it comes to us, it seems evident that he will give us strength and hope.
Peter concludes by suggesting, “(God will) restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”
Life will give us all manner of losses and changes; God turns them into victories if we are alert and sober minded.
Think about it.
Your serve…
Kent Simmons is the pastor of Canyon Community Church in Kingman AZ.
