I recently watched a well-known sports drink commercial advocating that those who drink a company’s particular product will be successful, winning, and victorious people. Teams would win with this company’s drink. Individuals would perform better with this specific and amazing drink. And so, when a team drinking its drink won any competition, the performance drink company was quick to place its commercial logo in front of the cameras and all over the winning teams’ logo.
The unfortunate problem is that actually, in most instances, both teams are drinking the exact same performance-enhancing drink, resulting in only a 50/50 success rate at powering a team to victory. The ads never mention that just as many teams lose with the promoting company’s sports product as those that win.
So this is the great truth of success in the wonderful world of sports, where only 50% of the contests end with a successful victory: in individual sporting events, such as track and field, swimming, golf, and tennis, there are always many more losers than winners, making the percentage of winners much, much lower than the percentage of losers. Life is often a team event but is, most of the time, ultimately an individual event. For this reason, there are always many “also-rans” in our scope of existence. There are always many more people who have lived with defeat than the few who have been perfectly successful in life. We live in a pressure cooker, a perfection-seeking and success-oriented world. We thrive on competition. We expect that we will reach the tape first in every race, achieve a 100% percentile in every course, and never be an “also-ran” individual in any aspect of our lives. But regardless of our expectations, we know that we are not always excellent, perfect, or winners. We easily find ourselves left behind, lagging, and wanting what we cannot have.
Unless you think that this is a despicable place to be and that you are unique in your situation, try and know that no matter how much we win in this life, how high we soar, how great the successes we amass, at the end, the increased elevation is always only slight. In the end, we usually find that we are actually on the same playing field, and the greatness and victories are of little consequence. It is pathetic when the May Queen never gets over that momentary accolade, or the sports star never remembers his or her humanity, or the big dog forgets his or her mortality. It is sorrowful when we believe in our greatness above all else.
It is said in the biography of William Randolph Hearst, that he would never allow anyone to mention the word “death” in his presence. He could not handle the idea of mortality, defeat, or tragedy. He could only believe in the lie of his greatness. Mr. Hearst, (along with a few of us, even today), found comfort, or more accurately, discomfort in, “As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. When the wind passeth over it and it is gone, the place thereof shall know it no more.” These words are as infinitely true as they are infinitely unpopular.
It is said in the biography of William Randolph Hearst, that he would never allow anyone to mention the word “death” in his presence. He could not handle the idea of mortality, defeat, or tragedy. He could only believe in the lie of his greatness. Mr. Hearst, (along with a few of us, even today), found comfort, or more accurately, discomfort in, “As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. When the wind passeth over it and it is gone, the place thereof shall know it no more.” These words are as infinitely true as they are infinitely unpopular.
As Christians, our hope is not in our abilities, perfections, or successes. As Christians, hope is in the dreadfully tragic Cross of Jesus Christ. Only in our facing our mortality can we finally know that we will not be asked, “Did you win?” or “Were you successful?” The ultimate question now and always, will continue to be, “Are you faithful?”
I find comfort in knowing that I am called to “love” and not to “win”. I find great hope in knowing that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” It goes against our grain, but a proper attitude in life would be to adopt nonchalance about our successes and perfections and a God-given serenity with regard to our tragic failures.
Lord, grant us, by your grace, the wisdom to know the differences between the eternal and the temporal, the treasures of heaven and the treasures of earth, and strengthen within us the ability to seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, so that we may learn to possess the peace that the world can neither give nor take away.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
