When you see a hard sporting tussle between two teams, it’s a pity that one has to be the loser. Losing means disappointment and the excuses and sometimes recriminations: ‘If only I had not done that’ or ‘if only I’d just done the other’.

Then there are the things people will say, allegedly to cheer us up. ‘You did your best’, and so on. But the flush of success on the faces of the victors means in any language, ‘Well, you’ve failed.’

But it’s not just a losing football team on cup final day, or a bad examination result that I’m talking about. It’s a total attitude to such things as failure and loss in our lives, or winning and success. Or even worse still, the appalling time of bitter grief which no successful happy person can ever enter into. This is why Jesus of Nazareth is not just the man of joy, but also the man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, who has been at all points tempted like we are, yet without falling into the sin of bitterness and self pity.

So, today, take your success and good things, and rejoice in the presence of God, but also take your failure and admit it without any excuse. There you’ve got somebody who really does understand and who, furthermore, can cheer you up without pretending that it doesn’t hurt. ‘Take it to the Lord, in prayer.’

By the way, if you want something extra to read today, try Psalm 130!

Now Read: James 1: 5-8James 1: 5-8
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. ⁷ For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. ⁸ A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.  

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