When we were kids, each walk became a race; each math assignment launched a competition; every recital was a place to prove our mastery. Half of us, on any day, were losers of some kind—in the race to the mailbox; in the quest to get the better grade; in the hope to have one shining moment when we were proclaimed the best.
And so we arrive at mid-life with a shelf half-full of trophies and an aching sense that we have lost more than some rounds of golf and afternoons of tennis. We spend the first half of our lives turning friends into competitors, and spend the last half trying to reverse that process. Winning may be everything, but everything on many days can feel remarkably like nothing.
Grace offers us a different way—a way to run with others, not against them; a way to play for joy and not for triumph. There are no losers in this race, except for those who will not enter.
The apostle Paul, as tough a man as ever walked the planet, reminded us how all may share the final victory: “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.”
Grace crowds the finish line with millions of co-winners. And the Lord, who judges everyone, is delighted with the outcome.
So stay in grace.
—Bill Knott