It’s a provoking question isn’t it?
You could write a whole book on this topic so one blog probably isn’t going to do the topic justice but lets at least begin the discussion. Allow me to breeze through some of my beliefs regarding competition to provide a foundation for this discussion:
- All of life, including sports is a place to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31)
- God very much cares about who wins and loses because he is a sovereign God. Nothing is too big or too small for God to concerned with. He uses “winners” and “losers” to bring the maximum amount of glory to Himself.
- I don’t believe play, competition, or sports are evil or are sinful. Like everything else, they were a good thing that has now been tainted by sin. You can read more about this here.
- Just as Adam and Eve were to bring about order to chaos in the world and unearth treasure, I believe sports (like everything else) is an opportunity for us to do likewise. Our posture in the midst of competition should be to bring out the best–to unearth treasure–in our opponents, our teammates, and ourselves.
So, imagine these were your beliefs in regards to sports and competition. With this framework in mind, how would you view winning and losing? Is there a good desire to win that doesn’t involve sin? Should the Christian even care about who wins and loses? In the midst of defeat, is it God-glorifying to feel disappointment, anger, frustration, etc.? What does our disappointment, anger, frustration, etc. say about what we believe about winning and competition?
As I analyze my heart through Holy Spirit-driven conviction, I realize that I have yet to have a desire to win that wasn’t ultimately about me. In other words, all of the desires I find in myself to win are idolatrous. An idol is anything that is more important to us than God. When I boil it down, all of my desires to win are about some misguided search for significance and self-worth that are apart from God. This is idolatry. This is sin.
Is it possible to have a pure, gospel-motivated desire to win? One that would bring glory to God and not to myself? One that is God-centered and not me-centered? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
What do you think?
