Learning to Lose

The Ragin Cajun Baseball team is expected to be really good this year. They have several starters back from last year and some exciting new players. They are picked to win their conference almost unanimously. The season started on Friday night. They lost. They went on to win three of four games over the weekend. In baseball you play a lot of games. You better learn how to lose.

Even a great hitter will get an out about every 7 out of ten times he steps up to bat. You better learn how to lose.

Life is like that. Most days we don’t get home runs or even singles. We strike out or ground out or fly out. Sometime, however, we get a walk, or get a hit, maybe even a home run. That happens if we don’t quit the many times we “lose.” That happens if we learn from our losses.

We lose a lot in life. There is a danger we will get use to it. We can become losers. Losing can be how we define ourselves. The secret is to take our losses in stride without becoming satisfied with them. Our losses should motivate us to win.

Losing is especially important to Christians. As Christians, we know that without Christ we are losers. We can’t win without Him. He knows that about us and loves us for it. For us, losing is just a reminder we need more of Him. We need to move closer in. We need to set more of ourselves aside and make room for more of Him.

We  can see something a baseball team will never see. We can see victory in loss. We can see Jesus triumph when we are the weakest, when we make the most errors, when we not only miss the ball, but can’t seem to see it at all.

Play ball. It’s a long season.