Nice slice.
I hate your stinkin’ guts.
Which of these would you not expect to hear while shaking hands across the tennis net at the end of a match?
Well, I’ve heard ’em all. Although the last was supposedly tongue-in-cheek, I suspect there was hidden truth there. (Actually I’m sure of it because it was me speaking.)
Just kidding.
Sorta.
Anyway, the point is – losing sometimes clogs our spirits with nasty. Whatever graciousness might usually reside there is thrown under the bus of frustration. We are ANGRY because we/our team/our kid didn’t dominate. So anything goes. Let ‘er rip. Diplomacy be hanged.
We tell ourselves that’s just sports. Part of competition. So it’s okay. But it’s not.
So imagine my surprise when, at the end of a league match a few weeks ago (in league play, tension is high because the match counts either for your team or against with a championship at stake), my opponent (who lost) did something completely unexpected.
I still can hardly believe it. Are you ready?
She gave me her shoes. Her shoes.
Yep. She shook my hand, asked my shoe size, then handed me the $80 Nike’s she’d only worn once.”Try them on,” she said, mopping her sweaty brow. “They don’t fit me right. If you like them, they’re yours.”
I back-pedaled big time, boy. She’d been a tough, grisly, no-nonsense competitor and I was all ready to dislike her. Then she sucked the wind right out of my sails.
She took me so by surprise I couldn’t seem to put a cohesive sentence together. Sputtering nonsense, I plunked down, tried on the perfectly fitting shoes and watched her walk away barefoot with a “so that’s that, then” smile and nod.
I was totally reeling the rest of the day. Why in the world would someone be that nice?
Radical grace knocked me upside the head. And made me think. Why is extending grace to someone you don’t really know or even like so shocking? Especially for emulators of Jesus. He was the epitome of grace in forgiving his own executioners; aren’t we supposed to be more like Him?
Or more precisely, aren’t I supposed to be more like Him?
I love my new tennies. I think about that incredibly gracious gal every time I wear them. And they remind me to be radical.
Tell me, when have you last experienced radical grace?
It is the job of the Holy Spirit to bring glory to Jesus, and the Spirit works in all of us to do just that. Your opponent's grace led you to write this post which, in turn, glorifies Him.
God is cool that way.
Soot of the essence of sports, the way it should be, not the way it is most of the time.
From my time as wrestler, I like combat sports, (MMA sorry, probably the reason I don't comment more on this blog), but when Miesha Tate won the UFC women's bantamweight title, she could not have nicer ore more respectful toward her vanquished opponent. I have played and watched a lot of sports, and at the end I always look for the way the victor or the loser behaves at the end, to me it often says more about the person than the actual competition.
I hope this comment gets through. sometimes I have trouble proving I am not a robot.