I LOST BECAUSE THEY CHEATED

It’s an interesting time in which we are now living. But, then, interesting may not be the correct word. How about frightening? The mindset for so many is that if we lost, whatever it is that we lost, it was not our fault. It was because someone else, or many other someones. did something, somehow in some way, to make sure we came out on the short end of the stick and now it’s payback-time. That scares me.

Sometimes the loser or losers are correct. The Black Sox Scandal back in the early 20^th century and the Houston Astro cheating a few years back are testaments that cheaters sometimes win. But what price that kind of victory? The players on both of those teams who engaged in the cheating were and will be marked for life.

This mindset that “We was robbed!”, as the old Brooklyn Dodger mantra had it years ago, is still very much prevalent. The last presidential election is a glaring manifestation of this false belief, but it is belief nevertheless and one that seems not to want to go away quietly. In fact, it is not going away and certainly not quietly. I just shake my head in sad disbelief and wonder why. That mindset interests me but is also frightens me.

Perhaps it goes back to a time not so long ago and, unfortunately is still present, that everyone wins; everyone gets a trophy. I can’t image my Little League baseball manager giving each of us a trophy because we finished dead last with a 3 and 18 record. We enjoyed our few wins, moped when we lost, but quickly got over it. It was the simple joy of playing the game that mattered. Winning wasn’t the be all or end all. Now that’s what it seems to be. What is even worse is that we get angry and act out to the harm of others.

As Christians our hero was considered a very big loser, even among his closet friends. He was kind and caring and loving and healing and forgiving, a real hero; and yet they hung him out to dry on a cross. And when Peter tried to defend him, he told him to put down the sword. Some winner he turned out to be! Some winner he did turn out to be! But the victory came in ways no one expected: resurrection and new life.

But that is how all seeming and even real loses turn to victories: through resurrection and new life. They don’t come from trying to undo the past, take away the victory from someone else and claim it should have been ours. It comes from acknowledging the loss, whatever that loss was, and doing what needs to be done to find resurrection and new life in the days and weeks and years to come.

There will always be winners and losers. Reflecting on our past, we learned more from our defeats than from our victories. My team lost all those games back then not because the other teams cheated but because we weren’t a very good baseball team. Resurrection and new life only come from loss because that is often the only way we learn. Cheaters, in the end, never win. Losers usually do if we are willing to admit defeat and move on.