For many of us, life is a series of scorecards waiting for us to fill in. The formula for winning appears firmly in place. The battle for supremacy occurs in each individual life. The combatants appear all around us striving for our demise. Victory is very much in doubt. Problems, issues, challenges, and stress multiply without any regard for our ability to cope! Regardless of our interest in competing, we are competitors. Without our consent, and often even our awareness, our names show up as active players vying for a prize.
Where is the logic to any of this? What is it going to take us to win? Why do bad things happen when we are doing everything we can to do what is right? Where is God? When am I going to find the help I need?
There are days when one just wants to find a quiet corner of a farmer’s field and scream until his cows come home. The weight of the future appears overwhelming and without end. Life is difficult and challenging on good days, overwhelming to the point of drowning on bad ones. The problems extend from morning through night into the following dawn; family to friends and on into work and people we meet on the streets. A plead for help does not do the job!
It helps me when I find myself in this loop (often several times a day) to remember that God gives me a different way of winning. Scorecards of the world are just like laws, rigid excerpts that focus on the negative! “All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.” (Romans 5.20)
God gives each of us a fresh way to deal with the stuff of life that hits us each day. We do not need to accept the world’s view; we can look at things God’s way! With God, we already have a guaranteed victory.
