My son loves sports. Right now, it is baseball season and this kid eats, breathes and lives baseball. A month ago it was basketball. And so I love to use sports as a means to teach – not so much about the game – but about life because there are so many parallels. Every moment is a teaching moment. Hard work pays off. Practice, practice, practice. Discipline. Integrity. Teamwork. Learning how to win. And perhaps more importantly – learning how to lose. Learning how to handle loss with grace – whether it is a single play in the game, or the game itself – learning how to handle adversity and failure is one of the most important skills to have. Do you give up and stomp off and pout? Or do you hustle to the next play, and try to do better? Do you sulk in your teams’ loss, or do you keep your chin up, looking forward to the next game?
I’m always telling my son that “you’ve got to have a short memory in sports…” I’m sure he’s already tire of hearing it, but the phrase is so true. You’re going to make some shots, and your going to miss some. You’re going to hit the ball, and sometimes your going to miss. Once in a while, you’re going to miss when everything’s on the line. You may go through slumps where you’re not doing well at all. You’ve just got to keep shooting. Keep swinging. Keep throwing. Keep trying. You don’t have a choice in what happens to you, but you do have a choice in how your respond. Sometimes you strike out.
The game is full of ups and downs. But you hustle to the next play. Have a short memory – don’t get too high when you succeed, and don’t get too down on yourself when you mess up. Forget about it and move on to the next play. Just find joy in the game…
Life is like this. Our spiritual lives are like this. We experience this. Paul and Barnabas experienced this today in the first reading. The Jews didn’t want to listen. So what did they do? Did they sulk? Nope… “they shook the dust from their feet… and went to Iconium. The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.”
They shook it off and moved on to the next play… I’m sure they were disappointed, but they had joy in their faith and in the Holy Spirit – they had joy in the game – and they moved on to the next play. They moved on to the next group of people to tell them about Jesus.
Keep your eye on the ball, I tell him. Remain focused on your goal. In times of struggle, listen to your coach. Your teammates will help you out. If you get beat and a guy dribbles past you, your teammate will step up to help. Don’t get discouraged. Just step up to the next play, and try not to get beat again. And be there to help your teammate when they get beat. It’s about working together, and helping out when one fails. Being well trained does not prevent failure and disappointment. Good shooters in basketball only make half their shots. Good hitters in baseball get a hit just 30% of the time.
You’re not going to be perfect, I tell him. But embrace the struggle. Love the challenge. Find joy in the game, and you will succeed overall. You will succeed in life throughout the struggles it throws at you. Carry this over to your prayer life, and remain focused on God, amidst all your failures, stay focused on Jesus – trying to get better. Keep practicing. Keep praying. Whatever curveball life throws at you, God will be with you, helping you through it, “wiping away every tear from our eyes” when we miss. Christ will be there. We will be there for each other, as good Christians.
Revelations speaks of this today. God is forever with us during these times, through the times of great distress that is the game of life. If we remain focused on Him, and get up, shake the dust of and step back up to the plate – we will win the game. He tells us this in the Book of Revelation. He tells us how it all ends. The good team wins. We simply must embrace the challenge of life so that we become stronger. There will be ups and downs. But through it all we simply are joyful to play in the game.
Like a good coach, Jesus cares when a player, when one of His flock is struggling. I tell my son, listen to your coaches. They will tell you what you need to do. They will help you correct it. Sometimes though, we need to be benched. We need to take a break, rest up, gather our thoughts and watch things from the sidelines, watch the game from a new perspective, so that when we get back into the game we can do better.
Life is no different. Our spiritual lives are no different. We need to listen to what Christ is saying to us – through prayer, through clergy, and through those around us. But often we need to take a break and look at things from the sidelines, from a new perspective. This helps us recharge and become better people. Better Christians. And better Catholics. We take this time to look at the times where we failed, learn from them, and try to do better.
We need to have courage that Christ will get us through the disappointments and trials, and help us to become better people. Like a good coach, Jesus guides and teaches us. He shows us the way. And like a good team, we follow His lead. We step up and help each other out when one struggles.
But sadly, all too often, we don’t play as a team. We don’t listen to our coach. When we strike out a few times or miss some shots and get into a slump in life – we let it get to us and we stop shooting the ball. We stop swinging the bat. We think back at all those times we’ve failed, all those times we’ve sinned, and we refuse to ask Christ – our coach – for the help we need to correct it. We get discouraged, and we turn away from Him, and others. We tell ourselves we can get out of the slump on our own, and we don’t want to ask for help. Jesus tells us today in the Gospel – “My sheep, hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they follow me.”
We’ve got to have a short memory. When we fail, we’ve got to immediately get back up and ask Christ for help and forgiveness and mercy with love and a full heart. We’ve got to always turn towards Him and our team, rather than away from Him and into ourselves.
We’ve got to remain humble in our successes and persevere in our struggles, and leave them behind, getting ready for the next play in life. We shake the dust off and move on to those we can help. We stand back up and wait for the next pitch. We know that Jesus will be there guiding us throughout. But through it all, all life’s ups and downs, we find joy in the game of life.
