A Winning Moment in Life is Grace Extraordinary with God

A Winning Moment in Life is Grace Extraordinary

As a child who tries over and over to be number one in any endeavor and comes up short can be devastated as he ages.  The best advice we, as parents, can extend to a young child who appears to fail is to keep instilling hope when the chips are down.  

To tell them that it's only a game won’t wipe away the shame they feel in front of their peers.  “So you thought you were the best” they will hear.  Overcoming failure at a young age is not easy and all the comfort attitudes we try to explain may stay with them for a long time.  

Any child who watches their hero in sports gain fame and have a career of win after win sets an example to follow after.  Watching grade school athletes that are excellent in their chosen sport find that only a lesser number will make a mark as they reach high school status.  The top athletes will find more from other high schools are now competitors that diminish the possibilities as they reach college.  When the best are waiting at the election of the professional draft, the chance of being drafted is even more challenging. 

So it is in life and no matter how much effort we put in our chosen field, there is always one more that beats us as the chosen candidate.  

Losing the path we consider perfect, especially with all the study, good grades, and plans to excel could be the stake in life that just doesn’t make it for us.  Failure in any endeavor is not the final move for anyone.  The giants in industry never made their success on the first, or many attempts to find their dreams come to fruition.  Their failures were signs to try again.  

Multiple saints who became successful didn’t gain fame as life styles seek.  Each one found that arriving at God’s table required suffering, rejection for their beliefs, and often no answer from God when their efforts discover a lonely experience as a stand-alone occurrence.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”  (Mt 6: 33).  However, the world we live in is very distant from finding God in their lives.  Becoming like the saints of the past, and for some saints alive today, the desire appears to be for some a far away planet where most do not live.  

Jesus came to us so we could have life and in abundance.  “I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (Jn 10 9).  The life we will have still requires an effort by us, but adhering to the life Jesus offered will find the grace extraordinarily.  

This extraordinary door exists, but too few are choosing its direction.  It is the path to sainthood and the way is suffering first, and exclusion from earthly success.  Choose that example not like the dream of a child struggling to gain fame, but a crown of winning glory if the goal becomes like Christ.

Ralph B. Hathaway