Play on...

So i have the wonderful joy of being able to play basketball a few times a week with a great group of guys. The cool thing about this group is we are all very different. It is three other guys I play with, their jobs all have to do with finance in some shape or form, so i guess that I am the odd man out. But anyhow, we are all different, which makes a very cool dynamic in our basketball games. I always play against on of the guys. We are always matched up against one another. Our teammates may rotate, but we always play each other. I am going to have a moment of real honesty right now. He wears me out. What i mean by that is, I do everything I know how to do on the defensive end, but he always finds a way to score. I even foul him a good bit, but yet he always finds a way to score. The crazy thing is, not only does he wear me out, but he can literally shot the ball from anywhere on the court and make it. Despite my best efforts, he dominates me on the court. Let me go ahead and let you in on a little secret about me, I don't like to lose. I know you are thinking, who likes to lose. But I am really competitive and for me to go out on the court and play basketball and to only come away with a win, 5-10 percent of the time, is really, really, really frustrating. I love to win, but i think I am learning more in my losses than my few wins. I am beginning to feel that the lesson is in the journey not so much the victory. I can't believe i just said that. But let me see if i can explain. See, the easy thing to do when I lose would be to quit, and to maybe change the teams where me and my nemesis would be on the same team, but that would be the easy thing to do. That would not build character in me, I have learned in my losses that I have to play on. When I lose time and time again, I have to get back in the game and play on. I have realized that the more i play, the better I get. Did you catch that, the more I play the better I get. Sounds a lot like our Christian walk doesn't it? I mean there are times in life where we walk by faith and fall flat on our face, there are times when we fail, there are times when we fall back into that sin that entangles us so easily. But the lesson is, not to quit or to give up, but to play on. I think James says it best, in chapter one of his letter, beginning in verse 2, he says this, "count it all joy my brother, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." I don't know about you, but I don't want to lack anything, and in order to get there, there are going to be trials, there are going to be losses, and there my be some stumbling, but I know at the end of it all, i am going to look more like Christ because of it. Isn't that the point anyways. So the question I have to ask myself, in midst of my failures and "trials of various kinds" am I going to have enough faith and resolve to Play on...