And Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, 'The Lord be between thee and me, and between my seed and thy seed forever.'" And he arose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city. I Samuel 20:42

And Esau went and met him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept. Genesis 33:4

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it. I Corinthians 12:26

Winning, someone said, isn't the main thing; it's the only thing. When I was growing up, much of the entertainment at our house came from playing board games and card games. I hated to lose, no matter what game we played, and at times I displayed some very un-Christian attitudes when I lost. As I got older, I didn't improve much. These days one of our favorite activities, when the opportunity presents itself, is playing Scrabble. Just ask some of my family members how gracious I am after losing ten or fifteen games in a row. For that matter, I'm not much better if I win several in a row. I don't say that with any sense of pride, and I am trying to grow up a bit, but that's something the Lord will have to work out in my life.

That whole attitude, of always wanting to win, and never being satisfied with just doing well, pervades our whole society. A coach who doesn't win, particularly at a big-name school like Kentucky or North Carolina or WVU, doesn't stay around long. Politicians who don't win, at least some of the time, soon run out of money and opportunities. We have no tolerance for also-rans; no matter if a team played in the best basketball game of all time, and lost by one point, we only remember the winners. Some of us may know that FDR was the only President elected to serve four terms, but how many remember the names of the men he ran against?

Saul's son, Jonathan, should have been counted a winner, by almost any standard. He was not only the son and heir of the king, but a military hero with the devotion and admiration of his men. He was also a loyal and devoted friend, willing to surrender his own rights and prerogatives for the sake of his friend David. Yet, it was precisely because of David that he appears to be one of the great losers of the Bible. He lost his right to follow his father on the throne of Israel, and ultimately lost his own life. He was willing to step aside, not insisting on what was due him, because of his love for his friend. That's not the attitude we expect from someone who lost everything, even his father's sanity, because another man won.

Esau was another loser. He allowed his younger brother, Jacob, to steal, by hook and crook, what was rightfully his. Not nearly as gracious as Jonathan, he would have killed his brother if Jacob hadn't escaped. Years later, though, when the two met again, he freely forgave all the treachery and hurt, and embraced Jacob as a long-lost brother, not a despised one. We often hear in church about the conflict between the two men, but rarely about their reconciliation.

Being a gracious loser is one side of the story; how winners react is the other. In America, winners take special delight in rubbing the losers' noses in the dirt. Although they may pay lip service to the idea of consoling losers and patting them on the back, that's usually just for public consumption. It's not just losers in sporting events who have a hard time, either. Some people go through their whole lives moving from one failure to the next, so beaten down they lose hope of ever standing straight again. There used to be a comic strip called "The Born Loser." That's not true, of course; no one is born to failure, just as no one is born to success. The ides, though, that some of us never succeed at anything, no matter how hard we try, is very real.

Winning and losing are tied to pride of self; if we win, it must be because we're better than other people, someone of real worth. If we always lose, we must be the scum of the earth. As with any form of pride, we're using the wrong standard. What is important is, not how we measure up to other people, but how we measure up in God's eyes. Under the blood of Christ, we are all perfect in the eyes of the Father, and every one of us is a winner. Just as our salvation doesn't depend on the good things we do, neither does our position in God's eyes after we're born again. God, Luke wrote, is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).

Nonetheless, we should lose no opportunity to build others up, whether they're our children. or spouses. or friends. or even total strangers. Even if you're the absolute best in everything you do, don't always be so eager to impress others with the fact. One of my sisters said something to me after one session of Scrabble when the best I could achieve was second place. "You're good at so many things, " she said, "but this is the only thing I can be really good in." That stuck with me, and made me feel more than a little ashamed. I'm not saying we should deliberately throw in the towel so someone else can win, though there may be occasion for that. When another person does win, though, no matter the occasion or situation, rejoice with them, even if you're the loser. If the winner is someone who seldom wins in life, then it won't hurt to go overboard to build them up. If they're Christians, they're part of the same body as we, and in building them up we're helping ourselves as well. What to us may seem a minor triumph hardly worth noticing may be a major event for the winner. If we'll surrender a bit of our pride, we can feel like winners, too, even when we lose. Winning is never the only thing.

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JESUS IS the Bridge Ministries

Beneath His Wings Devotionals - Vol. 2