SuZan Klassen

Nobody wants to lose, but are there lessons to be learned from losing?

During this season of March Madness we’ve watched an abundance of college basketball at our house and on the road. The final score of each game may reveal a team’s strength for that day, but most interesting to me is how the competition reveals or works on the character of the individual players.

After a particularly hard-fought contest, the team slightly favored to win was losing instead. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, the TV cameras panned the faces of three players on the losing team.

The first young man looked in shock as if he thought to himself, “This can’t be happening.” The second player scowled in anger. The camera focused on the third player long enough for me to observe as he made an attitude adjustment. He calmly nodded as if to say, “All right. They came to play. Face it. It is what it is.”

The varying responses of those players reminded me of a recent pastor’s sermon. “Sometimes God allows frustration to come into our lives to keep us humble.”

Humility from God’s perspective is a good thing.

Due to recent circumstances I identified with the frustration of those basketball players. Ever since I started a new project, I’ve endured some criticism. Of course that’s nothing new. We all experience that. The surprise for me was the unexpected direction it came from. I was totally blindsided by it—just like those three players were blindsided by their loss.

Somehow, those I considered to be my teammates misunderstood the purpose of the project. I could not understand their hatefulness as they discussed me in my absence (their gossip came back to me). Nor could I understand their unkindness in my presence.

I had often supported them in their endeavors. Why couldn’t they support me in mine?

If God was using them to create this stressful situation, then I was being given a mighty lesson to strengthen my character.

“Lean into it,” the pastor said.

Just like those basketball players, I had some choices to make:
1. Stay in shock
2. Rail against it
3. Face the reality

“Lean into it,” the pastor said. “Learn all you can from the lessons humility has to teach.”

I know it will affect the outcome for my character. It may affect the final score for your character, too.

Travel Light Humor
What number would you choose for your jersey if you were a college basketball player? Louisville’s Mangok Mathiang chose #12 because he couldn’t decide between #1 and #2.

Gotta love that kind of logic.

Tell me the number you would choose. Leave your answer in the comments below.

Until next time . . . Travel Light,
SuZan
© 2017 SuZan Klassen