OK. I admit it: I don't like to lose. My team lost this afternoon, and I was upset for quite a while. But, "It is just a game," you say. But I like to win.
And I don't like it when I think the game was taken from my team. "It isn't fair."
While walking just before sunset, I was thinking about the game, and Romans 8.28 popped into my head. "All things work to advance God's kingdom." (David's paraphrase.) I know by now that when a verse pops up, I better listen because that is an encounter with God.
Yes, it really does say, "all things."
Even a basketball game? How can losing a basketball game advance the Kingdom?
Maybe the game is more than just a basketball game.
I thought of these two life lessons as a result of stewing over the loss:
1. I should focus on those things in life that have eternal value and minimize the time spent thinking and worrying about the temporal. A basketball game is temporal. I should be more upset about people in my area of influence dying without knowing Jesus as Savior than about losing a basketball game.
2. Who am I to judge whether life is fair or not. The Bible says that God's ways are much higher than mine; He is sovereign and in control.
I needed those reminders this afternoon.
