Tip of My Iceberg

I was really disappointed when the US men’s soccer team lost to Belgium. I’d believed too much in the commercial, where one man was fantasizing about the US winning the World Cup, and another man asked him, “Don’t you believe in miracles?” It was the captain of the winning hockey team from the 1980 Olympics, the miracle team, who weren’t ever expected to beat the Soviets. But they did.

I’d hoped.

But it didn’t happen. Every team has a bad day, but announcers were disparaging of the men’s team for their poor performance. The fans were disappointed. The team didn’t play their best, but they had up to that point.

There was a truth that had to be considered. Belgium was ranked eighth; the US was ranked sixteenth.

Soccer is one of those games where any team can beat any other team on any given day. Consider 67th-ranked Cape Verde almost beating top-ranked Argentina.

It could happen.

But it didn’t.

Often, people see failure as fatal, as an unforgivable error on the part of the one who didn’t quite make the mark. There is self-condemnation, feelings of guilt for not being better in the moment, and a sense of defeat for letting others down who were counting on you. We’ve all been there.

Winston Churchill once said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Nobody has a corner on success; we all will be confronted with opportunities where we won’t have what it takes to make something happen.

That’s no reason to quit trying. The greater perspective of success is embracing the number of failures it took to get there.

With Jesus, we have the same opportunity to try again. Many are fearful of feeling shame when they’ve done wrong, thinking they’ve committed the unforgivable sin. (The unforgivable sin is choosing not to accept the gift of Jesus’ forgiveness.) Jesus is gracious and loving; when one of His own falls, He picks them up, brushes them off, and encourages them to try again. He knows we’re frail; He’s well aware of our finitude.

This was shown dramatically when Jesus was being crucified. The religious leaders had manipulated His execution; the Jews weren’t allowed to carry out capital punishment. Jesus was accused of making Himself a King, a challenge to Caesar, so the Romans agreed to carry out the execution.

Jesus was brutally beaten before being marched to Golgotha, where He was crucified. Nine-inch nails were driven into his wrists (to hold Him up) as well as through the tops of His feet, which had been stacked one on top of the other. The physical pain didn’t come close to the spiritual pain He experienced when He took on the sins of all the world through all of time on His own shoulders. Yet, in His compassion, as He looked down from the cross, “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’” Luke 23:34.

The people had shamed Him, blamed Him, and turned their backs on Him.

He didn’t see it as failure.

He accomplished what He had come to do; He died in our place so we could experience heaven.

It cost Him.

The failure of the US men’s soccer team to go forth in the World Cup cost them the hope of the impossible dream.

But they’re not finished yet. They can learn from how they played, how they strategized, and how they collaborated as a team.

Jesus gives us every chance possible because He doesn’t want heaven without us.

Don’t quit on yourself.