Defeat

Yes…I watched it. Pity we lost. It wasn’t the best game I’ve watched, but we had our chances. And on the night, probably, the better team won. Funny really because if you’d asked me at the beginning of the tournament who’d be in the final, I don’t think I’d have picked England or Italy. But what do I know? England surprised us and played well in some games. They got to the final for the first time in 55 years. And we all thought, maybe they can do it. Even me. Until the Italians scored! I hate losing. I really do. When I was younger the worst thing that could happen to me was to be beaten in anything. And the very worst thing of all was to be beaten by my brother. Good job it hardly ever happened! It’s a great motivator. It’s what drives teams and individuals on in whatever game or sport they’re playing. No-one wants to lose. The very thought of losing is, well, unthinkable! To see those professional footballers crying at the end of the game because they lost or missed a penalty tells us how much it hurts them to be on the losing side. But here’s something that really disappoints me: it’s when the losing team take their medals off immediately after receiving them! I get that they hate losing. I get that. But it seems you can lose graciously or you can lose badly. To lose graciously you keep your medal on, being grateful you made it to the final and acknowledging that on this day, in this game, the other team were better than you. To lose badly is to take your medal off and sulk ,pretending that if you do that you’re not a loser. It’s somehow to try and deny the truth about what just happened. Just for the record, I’ve kept all my losing trophies! Defeat is hard. Especially when it’s used to define you. And I’m wondering if God sees it differently. Is God particularly bothered who won Euro 2020? Probably not. But he is bothered about winning. And he is concerned about defeat. And here’s the thing: love wins. It does. Ultimately God’s love wins. That’s not a way of saying that if we’re on Gods side we win at everything all the time. Neither is it a way of saying that if we’re on God’s side we win in some things some of the time. But it is a way of saying that, in the end, in what is ultimately the most important thing, love wins. We will have many, many battles between here and the final whistle. Some of them will be hard and tough. Sometimes we will lose them. Sometimes we will feel like giving up. Sometimes the odds will look overwhelmingly against us. Sometimes we will see victories. Sometimes they will seem small , sometimes huge. What we hold onto though, is the deep and profound truth that love never fails. That there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love, absolutely nothing. And, that ultimately, love wins. And that one day, one fine day, I’ll be given a winners medal that I’ll never have to take off. Well, actually, it will be more of a crown. But the truth still stands: one day, one fine day, when love wins, I will be given a crown that lasts forever. We’re already talking about the World Cup in 2022, Euro 2020 forgotten. God’s love enables us to see way, way beyond that!