Sunday, February 1, 2015

It's Not Over Yet

February 1, 2015

Well, the Big Game is history for another year, and what a game it was! Now, I'm sure I'll offend someone with tonights's post, so whoever you are, just suck it up and deal with it. There, that's over! I can't say I'm thankful that the Patriots (or as pastor Joe called them this morning, the "Deflatriots") won. It really didn't matter to me which team won. You see, I don't follow football, or any other sport, for that matter. A week ago, I couldn't have told you who would be playing tonight. I'm not against it; it just doesn't trip my trigger. But I did watch tonight's game, and was glad it stayed close. It looked at first as if New England was going to run away with it, but over the years I've learned a major life lesson: how you start out doesn't necessarily determine how you'll finish. However you say it--"Don't count your chickens before they hatch," or Kenny Rogers' famous line from "The Gambler," "you don't count your money while you're sitting at the table; there'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done,"--the lesson is the same; it ins't over till the (here's another occasion for offense) fat lady sings.

Winston Churchill said it as well as anyone in his speech to his boyhood school after World War II. If my memory serves me well (which as anyone can testify, doesn't happen often; that's one servant I should have fired years ago, but no one's sitting at the employment office to replace him), he had been kicked out of that school for some reason, but once you're famous, old sins are easily forgiven. He was invited to give the commencement speech, and when time came, he stood up and said, "Gentlemen, never give up. Never, never, never, never give up." Upon which he sat down.

The speech might be apocryphal, but even so, it captured the indomitable spirit of the man, and that of the Patriots tonight. Not being a football fan, I can't identify any of the players by name, but when Seattle's guy had that pass he fumbled, jump up in the air, bounce off his leg, land back in his hands without touching the ground, my guess would be that nearly everyone in the stadium figured the game was as good as over. Who would have expected a pass on the very next play, one that would be intercepted? Even one as ignorant about football as I am knows that was a dumb call.

But it just goes to show that giving up is never the right thing to do. In the game of football, there is a winner and a loser, but as tonight's game showed, it's rarely in the bag. Life is a lot like that. Some people are underdogs, but with dogged persistence, they not only survive; they often come from behind and surprise everyone. It really didn't matter to me who won tonight; my world would not have ended either way. But I am grateful for the life lesson in tonight's game. Only when those final seconds tick away do we know how it all turns out, so it never is wise to give up. We just never know when God is going to pull something spectacular and turn losers into winners. Actually, we do know that. He did it in the resurrection, and does it every time someone turns to him in repentance and faith: Losers win. That's something to celebrate!

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