The Bible encourages us to lay hold of the hope that is within us.  However, there are times when the difficulties that face us seem so overwhelming it’s not enough to know I could find it if I only would.  We need to know it finds us – and it does.  Open your Bible for a moment to Romans 8:26 and underline that passage.  It tells us when we don’t know how to pray for ourselves, the Spirit Himself prays for us with groanings too deep for words.  This means God understands us and has resources for us that cannot be explained in human words.

All of you who have followed Christ for any length of time have had this experience, perhaps without knowing exactly what it was.  It’s the kind of thing that happens when you come to the church on Sunday morning and you are so hopeless you don’t even want to come.  Perhaps you skipped Sunday school because you didn’t want to have to look somebody in the face and admit you are just beat.  During a song, sermon, or prayer, something jumps all over you, and you are aware God is ministering to you.  Perhaps you do go to Sunday school, and you’re sitting quietly hoping the look on your face won’t be interpreted correctly.  Out of the blue, someone begins talking about what’s going on in their lives, and you realize all of a sudden they’re talking about you.  They talk about what God has done in their lives, and you realize God is doing that in you.  All of a sudden, hope has come to find you.  I’m glad God can be found and that when I draw near to Him, He draws near to me.  I’m also glad when I’ve lost the strength and the faith to draw near to Him, He sees my helplessness and sympathizes with it and draws near to me, giving hope where hopelessness had reigned.  

God bless you as you develop the disciplines that find hope.  God bless you even more as you trust with all your heart the God who gives hope to those who have given themselves to Him.

(This is a continuation of my last blog – part 1.  We are discussing strategies for winning based on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

3. AIM CLEARLY (vs. 26)

            Paul says, “I run in such a way as not without aim.”  I saw a lady in a track meet win her race by several yards but be disqualified because she ran out of her lane for a period.  It is too easy to be distracted, to be unclear about what really matters, to miss the importance of commitment and sacrifice, or to forget that trying too many things is at least as bad in its outcome as trying too few things.  These kinds of things disqualify too many.  Aim means the eliminating of everything but the objective of your aim.  Are there a few things at which you are aiming?  What strategy are you employing to reach them?  Is your aim and strategy in writing? (It should be.)  Is it clear and really important to you? (It should be.)  How about to others?  To try too little is to guarantee a small outcome. To try everything is to guarantee that you will do nothing well.  Aim in order to win.

4. GIVE UP THE RIGHT TO FEEL GOOD IN THE SHORT TERM (vs. 27)

            It’s a sad part of the human condition that we let happiness matter more to us than winning.  Look at the face of the man who scores the winning touchdown.  Happy?  You bet.  Look at that same face when he’s been at practice for two hours in the hot sun and his coach is in his face yelling at him.  Happy?  Not at all.  Yet without paying the price of seemingly thankless preparation, he would not have won.  All the most important things in life require not just self-discipline but self-sacrifice.  That’s the point of verse 27.  Want a great marriage when you’re 60?  Self-sacrifice will be required now.  Want great kids when they’re 35?  More self-sacrifice.  Want great standing when you retire among your peers?  More self-sacrifice.  You have to be prepared to sacrifice good feelings, relaxation, and contentment in the present to be able to win at something in the future.  Nobody gets to the Promised Land on an escalator.  Everybody has to walk over sharp rocks at times.  Part of getting there is being willing to pay that price.

            I hope this helps in your developing a winning strategy.

            No one can win at everything nor can anyone win all the time at anything.  But everyone can plan to win. You could substitute the word “succeed” for the word “win” and the above sentence would have similar truth, but maybe you would feel it was more applicable.  That’s what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.  A study of that text is a pretty good way to develop a winning strategy.

1. DEVELOP YOUR LIFE AROUND THE DESIRE TO SUCCEED/WIN ( vs. 24)

                       Paul contrasts the “also ran” with the “really ran.”  Some enter a race just to get a   t-shirt; others to win.  It’s the “really ran” that Paul commends.  It’s not winning that is commended but the intent to win and running in such a way that you can win.  There are races that are purely optional.  Nobody has to play golf, and some of the happiest golfers I know don’t care whether they win or not.  However, when you get married, have a child, take a job, or become a Christian, your “just    finishing” is not an option.   You need to succeed at these big things in life and you can do it, but it starts by saying to yourself, “I will not be an ‘also ran.’ I want to learn to win at this.”

2. CONTROL YOURSELF (vs. 25)

             Paul says the Christian life is about eternity, so we should be at least as determined as a man who wants a trophy, gold medal, or check.  This verse commends “self-control.”  This is a concept many skip, but no one who wins     skips it.  I see people fail at self-control because they would rather feel good now or they would rather shift the responsibility to an accountability partner.  You can often find such a person who will “hold you accountable,” but if you want to win,  you must learn to take that responsibility yourself.  To be sure, we all have periods when an accountability partner is essential and important, but most of the time it’s like having somebody else do your homework.  If you expect your wife  to see to it that you become a good husband or father or your husband to see to it that you become a good wife or mother, you are shirking your responsibility and diminishing your chance of success.  So if you need an accountability partner in     the short-term for some special need, God bless you for doing what it takes.  But God expects “SELF-control” of His people, and if you’re going to win at any important aspect of your life, it is an essential element.

(to be continued)

In a sermon a few weeks ago I made the offhand remark that parents should teach their children to win with grace and lose with faith.  Elizabeth Gibbons’ thoughtfully asked through e-mail, “I understand winning with grace, but how can we lose with faith?”  This is a great question for us all, and I want to spend the next several columns fleshing out my too brief e-mail answer to Elizabeth’s question.  So thanks, Elizabeth, for listening critically and asking a really helpful question.  In the next several blogs I will cover:

1. Winning with Grace         
2. Having a desire to win
3. Having a worthwhile goal
4. Developing a strategy for winning
5. Taking responsibility with gratitude
6. Losing with Faith
7. Things worth losing
8. Possessing the faith to learn from a loss
9. Winners lose without becoming losers

             Our text for these blogs will be I Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.”  This verse is not just about winning at sports but about the importance at winning at life and, in particular, winning at the Christian life. 

 WIN WITH GRACE BY HAVING THE DESIRE TO WIN

            One of my favorite questions to ask ministers in interviews is, “How competitive are you?”  I enjoy asking the question because only about two in a hundred are comfortable with whatever answer they give.  What I’d love to hear is, “I’m competitive.  I like to win.”  Most of them are apologetic about wanting to win, even if they do, as if the desire to win were some kind of a character flaw.  God speaks to us through Paul and makes it clear that Christians are to develop the desire and ability to win at whatever game they enter. 

             Look at 1 Corinthians 9:24 again.  Obviously, running is a command which means it is neither natural nor universal to do so.  You must choose both to enter the race and to run.  It also means that in the games you enter, you are to expend all the energy and effort you have in order to try to win.  For the Christian life, he is saying, “Don’t just get in the race to get a T-shirt, get in to win.”  Today because so many people want everyone to feel affirmed we diminish the importance of winning so no one will feel like a loser when they don’t win.  According to this passage of Scripture, anyone who takes winning casually at marriage, church, school, business, friendship, or following Christ is destined to lose.  We will see in a later column that this doesn’t mean you have to win, but it does mean you must run in order to win. 

             So, do you want to win with grace?  That’s the first step – wanting to.  If you just want to be in the game or if you want someone else to do the hard work and the heavy lifting, stop right now and ask God to give you the desire to run the races in your life in order to win.