Winning at Life

It’s a public holiday here in New Zealand today and our family joined with another family to go play some mini golf. With six children in total ranging from aged 3 to 12, you can imagine that there were various levels of ‘coping’ when holes didn’t go how the player intended.

There were sixteen ‘glow in the dark’ holes to complete on the course with the maximum number of shots allowed per hole set at eight. As part of the ‘girls’ team, we had the youngest player at just three years old.

So the worst possible score you could get for the completed round would be 128.

Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, this little girl scored 108. By far the most points, and, as we all know, to win in golf, the lower the score the better. And yet, when we told her that she had 108 points, she jumped up and down, arms raised, celebrating that she had the most points.

“I’m the winner!” she declared.

And in that moment, I thought, “Yes, you really are the winner.”

Because while her understanding of the game was skewed, her perspective and belief meant she truly was the winner. She believed she had won, and she did. We all shared in her joy and delight celebrating with her that yes, you really did get the most points. “You’re the winner of the most points!” we declared.

In that moment, I wondered, how often do we ‘lose’ in life because of how we’re perceiving a situation? How often do we miss out on a celebration and opportunity for joy because we’ve declared ourselves failures and losers?

What we choose to believe matters and, unlike this precious child who had misinterpreted the rules of the game to form her belief, we know that the truth of our situation and can still declare ourselves winners. Because,

“. . .thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:57