There are times when you have victory and times when you taste defeat. I experienced both in the same day.

When I was in my teens, every Saturday the ABC television network had a show in the afternoon called “Wide World of Sports”. It was a 90 minute sports update from around the world. 

In the opening credits they showed the extreme variety of what they covered and there was one line that stood out: “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” They showed a ski jumper falling just before the end of the jump ramp. It looked painful.

Anyway, that was my day – the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat … and it happened in two different sports.

Well, not really sports, but I had to stick with the theme of the show. 

In the morning, I preached a sermon and it went well. I felt good about it, others appreciated the message, and I felt I really connected with the congregation. Ultimately, I felt that God was pleased with my talk.

But later in the day, my victory turned to defeat in a whole other area. 

That same day in the afternoon we had Thanksgiving dinner. My wife, Lily, went all out and it was a beautiful and tasty spread. 

But the preparation for that meal started the day before and took several hours. The day of the meal involved even more preparation and more hours to put everything together. 

But it was all worth it – mouth-watering turkey, potatoes, carrots, broccoli in cheese sauce (well, you could keep the broccoli) … oh, and stuffing for those who are into it. 

Apparently, some of the best stuffing you can find of the planet, according to some sources. I’m not a real stuffing guy myself.

Then to finish it off, we had homemade pumpkin pie with real whip cream … more whip cream than pumpkin pie, which really makes it awesome.

It was an incredibly great meal that took hours and hours of hard work to prepare and then was eaten in probably less than a half hour. 

After the meal our guests started to make their way to different places. When it was time to clean up, there were only two people left in the house: Lily and some guy who would be me. 

The kitchen had stacks of dirty dishes and pots and pans. Lily loaded as much into the dishwasher as she could, but it barely made a dent in the piles. 

She then started to make soup and take all the meat off the bird for leftovers. 

I decided to come back to the kitchen when it was dishwashing time. But what I ended up doing was falling asleep watching football on TV.

By the time I woke up, everything was all clean and Lily had spent literally hours cleaning up and putting everything away. 

That’s the moment I felt my skis go out from under me and I came crashing down on the edge of the ski ramp. Ohhhhhh the agony of defeat! 

Lil had received no help at all. … Well, just like in sports, there’s always next year.

Here’s the thing: It can happen so easily and quickly that you have a great victory, followed very closely by a demoralizing defeat. To prevent that, don’t forget God in your victory, how He provided for you, how you need Him. That way you won’t be as tempted to assume your victory was your own doing, allowing Satan to use your pride to plummet you to defeat. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What recent victory do you need to give God the credit for? Leave you comments and questions below.