When Winning isn’t Winning
God will reward a telemarketer with a desire after Jesus Christ more than a mega-church pastor building his own brand.
-Pastor Alan
Collecting rewards and building our own brand will gives us the worlds most extraordinarily fleeting feeling of winning.
It is a winning that isn’t really winning, and is definitely not the win your heart is truly longing for.
The reward I got as a 7 year old for my team winning our soccer tournament is a beautiful picture of this. An hour after receiving my hard fought trophy all I could think about was which pizzas were going to be on the buffet when we got to the restaurant to celebrate. Seeing my favorite pizza on the buffet line was only exciting until it was time for dessert. And dessert was only exciting for the few seconds it was on my tastebuds until, you guessed it, immediate regret followed by a desire to sleep my sugar overdose away. Winning at its finest! But YOU are likely not a 7 year old.
As adults, we too though, feel this draw towards accomplishing what’s next.
The next rung of the ladder seems so good, doesn’t it? If you are anything like me you already know by now that these accomplishments have the ability to dazzle, but they are extremely temporary.
That new raise you get at work only feels good for a couple paychecks until you begin wishing you made more. Getting that dream house feels really nice for a while until you notice that your friends have a dream house AND a nice RV. Getting your children all graduated and out of the house is a huge win until you realize that your spouse has changed a bit over the past 30 years and now you have to relearn how to actually life with them.
What’s next never really satisfies, does it?
Even in our faith journeys we find ourselves getting to “the next level” and realizing that even there our winning is not necessarily all we hoped it would be.
My goal today is not to encourage you to become a loser. It is, in fact, to help you see that true winning is about a way of “being” and not a way of accomplishing. It’s about living our lives with an aim. This aim is not one that seeks to please the world by following its rules for winning, worship, and accomplishing. Our aim is a different kind of aim.
We aim our lives in a trajectory that plunges us deep into the heart of God.
Within the heart of God is where our minds are taught what true winning looks like. It is where the Holy Spirit trains us to think a new kind of way. It is within the shadow of his love that we learn life’s most important lessons. If that is our daily aim we will begin to see this new kingdom way of living and winning that Jesus refers to throughout the gospels.
Paul reminds us here in Romans that the way you think about winning is more important than you think.
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
-Romans 12:2
Let’s take a few moments to pause and take a deep breath or two. I want you to scan through your life right now and notice any of the areas you feel yourself striving and struggling to “win”. What is your aim in these struggles? Is it another temporary reward? Is it something that will feel good for a moment but will leave you wanting more? Is it a soccer trophy that only looks good until lunch?
Give yourself some time today to allow the Holy Spirit to transform and rearrange your mind and motivations. The world’s way of “winning” isn’t winning for people anymore and it never has, so feel free to stop trying.
Winning for us, as Christ-followers, looks like aiming our minds, hearts, love, motivations, and life at the heart of Jesus.
That sort of win will lead us into lives marked by peace and love. And that transformative power will lead you to a win that is eternal. It is a win that satisfies both now and forever, the win your heart is truly longing for.