For some reason, our culture is obsessed with winners and losers. In other words, you play my game by my rules, and, if you win, you’re a winner. If you lose, you’re a loser.
This is widely accepted as gospel, at least here in America. It fuels the great American love affair with sports. It’s pervasive in business and politics. It even finds its way into the church, especially in church leadership.
Some people are pushing back. There are no winners and losers they say. Instead, everybody gets a participation prize. You don’t need to learn how to read to get an A on the reading test. Everybody is a winner whether you win or not.
Hmm.
Could I suggest an alternative point of view?
Each person is a gift from God to all the rest of us. Each person is designed to win, but not everybody will win at my game playing by my rules. Maybe they weren’t designed to win my game. Maybe they were designed to win something else.
And maybe it helps all of us to help one another win at the game each is designed to win. Maybe it helps all of us when each of us becomes the best person we were designed to be.
And maybe we can get over our obsession with making other people lose so we can win.
Just maybe.
Dwight
