It's just a game! Or is there more. . . . .?

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.