“By standing firm, you will win your souls.”

We live in a world where winning isn’t enough.  We have to have a “rout”, a “runaway”, or a “landslide”.  When we win by a nose, we end up defending our win and feeling like we have to make claims of how we could have won by so much more had it not been for something that impeded us.  Wall Street beats up on a company for only meeting expectations.  Sand Hill Road Venture Capitalists want more and more until the definition of winning becomes too much to even fathom.  And then all of that attitude carries over into how we treat each other and we end up making everything competition and a zero-sum game.  But, every now and then, once in a blue moon, we will see an example of when someone wins, they don’t try to make more of it, but instead accept their victory with grace and humility and make it clear that they don’t think that they were the rightful winner and want to share the victory.  We saw this happen past Sunday night when Adele won the GRAMMY for Album of the Year.  She told us on live TV that she couldn’t accept the award and that it should have gone to Beyonce.  Nice words, but then behind the stage, this happened:

Yes, Adele broke the GRAMMY in the best half she could.  Now before we become cynical and say, “That was just an act and she will just get a new one.”  Well, let me tell you I have been around enough artists to tell you from first hand experience, that no one breaks their GRAMMY!, and that no matter how many someone wins, they each mean the same, which is a lot.  And no, just because you damage your trophy, you don’t get a replacement (they are all one of a kind and handmade).  So, Adele’s breaking of her GRAMMY was pretty amazing for me to see.  Beyonce won’t get the actual half credit, but the gesture of sincerity is an amazing witness of someone, Adele, who understands that there should always be grace in winning.

I can only find one time in the Bible that Jesus used the word, “Win” and that was when He was describing what eternity might look like and how the Disciples (us) need to stand firm in our following of Him for our own souls to be won for His Kingdom.  He never discussed or taught that winning against another person was valued or important.  In fact, He celebrated more those who were held back or disadvantaged to ever get much of a chance, much less winning at life.  Part of life is the demands of our culture to “be a winner” but even so, it is then incumbent on us to be graceful in that winning.

Reference: Luke 21:19 (New Living Translation)