Saturday my son wrestled in the district championships for his school
district. He has only wrestled for two seasons, but he finished fourth in his
weight class, so I'm obviously proud of him! As I watched, I noticed four
basic outcomes that repeated themselves thru out the day. It occurred to
me that they resembled scenarios we often face in life.
The first example is when one wrestler thoroughly dominated the other and
pins his or her (yes there were plenty of girls participating) opponent.
It reminded me that in life, there are certain tasks or positive habits that we
have mastered and we are easily able to maneuver ourselves through those areas
in life. Some people work out without fail and don't have to think twice
about whether to exercise or not. It has become such a habit that they
feel incomplete if they do not work out.
The next example is when you are on the losing end of the domination.
You get tossed all over the mat and eventually lose by a large point disadvantage,
or you get pinned by the opponent. It reminded me that there are bad
habits or other situation; some created by our own actions, that seem to just
hover over our lives and won’t go away. It seems there is no use in
fighting because the opposition is so strong. It is here where we can do
the easy thing and quit, or we can try to figure out why we feel so powerless,
identify our weaknesses that are preventing us from overcoming, focus on
strengthening our weak points and look to God to handle what we can’t.
Take the easy way out and we will constantly find ourselves battling and losing
to the same opponent every time.
The last two examples involve the back and forth battles between two equal
opponents. They wrestle back and forth, each of them scoring points as
they try to out maneuver each other. While both are comparable athletes,
it is either a mistake by one wrestler, or a successful move by the other that
often determines the outcome. This reminded me that in life, we win some
and we lose some. We do the right thing and our efforts are
rewarded. Sometimes we make mistakes and suffer the consequences as a
result. We struggle against old bad habits and sometimes we succumb to
temptation. The upside is that we are struggling now and are sometimes victorious,
whereas before we were dominated by the habit or temptation and didn't even
bother fighting it. We have grown to the point where we realize that when
we win, we must stay humble, because we are human and a setback may be around
the corner. Perhaps more importantly, we realize that our setbacks do not
need to be permanent, so we rise again knowing we have a chance to redeem
ourselves next time.
I suspect there are areas in our lives that fit each of the examples I
listed. Take some time and do a little self analysis. Be conscience of what
allowed you to achieve victory so you can keep dominating those areas of
life. Strengthen your weak points so you can reach a level where you can
fight back against your struggles. Finally, whatever you do, don't give
up when you stumble or fail! Keep getting back up after every defeat,
because in the game of life, just getting back up can be a victory in itself!
Thanks for reading! If you want something else to read, click here for my last post! Go Fix It
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