With Grace and Humility
by SusanI like to play indoor games, pretty much any kind that relies more on strategy than chance. It’s fun to play people who give their all, even to something as trivial as checkers.
What ruins a game for me is to have an opponent who gets so consumed by the competition that a loss makes them bitter and angry. I’ve seen such players display poor sportsmanship so that they lash out verbally or throw components of the game. Who can forget John McEnroe and his insults and racquet-throwing?
Running for a political office is another kind of game, albeit one with much higher stakes. We’ve seen candidates do all kinds of things in the wake of an election, hoping somehow to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Does the phrase “hanging chad” ring any bells? Or remember how last year’s electoral corruption threw the supposedly stable country of Kenya into a frightening degree of turmoil?
Something in us wants to fight to get our way, to be recognized for our effort and ability. I’ve been chased all over the chess board, long after I should have just tipped my inept king over and admitted, “Enough!”
It takes a strong person to admit defeat, and to do so with grace and humility. Knowing personally how difficult that can be, I appreciate the way John McCain, during the U.S. presidential election 2008, conceded defeat to Barack Obama as soon as polls closed in California:
The American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly. . . . I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. . . . It is natural — it’s natural tonight to feel some disappointment, but tomorrow we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.
A thrice-quoted statement in the Bible speaks to this: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5).
I wonder what shape God’s “grace” will take in terms of McCain? in terms of me?
Tags: humble, mccain concession speech, proud, sportsmanship
November 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Having umpired for John McEnroe, and therefore having felt his icy stare personally, I can say with certainty that his antics could easily “get to” an opponent — or even an official.
But he was almost always gracious in defeat, at least to his opponents, and he channeled his anger into making himself a better player.
Watching McEnroe and Jimmy Connors from an on-court seat one night, I began to wonder which came first, the amazing ability or the incredible cockiness. So many who have succeeded seem to have both of those, that it is especially refreshing to see John McCain concede with humility, without blaming anyone but himself for his defeat, and by being the one to begin the healing process in his gracious words.
Great coaches say that the best players learn more in defeat than in victory. And in the midst of his defeat, John McCain has taught us all.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
And, what about in the Church? We don’t always get our way, do we? Is this a kind of defeat? It depends on our attitude, to be sure. But, how we handle things in the church when it’s not “our will be done” is also something that many of us can learn, perhaps from someone such as John McCain, no?
November 6th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Yes we are disappointed, but we trust God to be in control of our country and to take us where we need to go. Obama is just his instrument and we will honor him and pray for him.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Defeat is always easier to accept in a tennis match that was umpired according to the rules, or in an election where there is no question of the results. Integrity in a system reinforces trust in the results of that system and while you might not like the results, you accept them.
Computer voting can be tampered with so in California we have returned to paper ballots because we know and trust paper. Paper ballots offer us a straightforward, traceable process with accountability that is more difficult to manage with computers. There is a level of abstraction that the computers have in their software where they interpret a voters intent and then record a representation of that in their database and so, without a direct record as there is with paper and pen, it is easy to create false results. Replace a single chip, programmed to record thousands of results as you’d like and voila – you’ve fixed the election!
I think everyone, including McCain, accepts that there were no voting irregularities (none of significance at least) and so knowing that the system worked, McCain can be gracious without much invested effort. Had Florida had problems yet again, had there been votes cast by dogs or Acorn phantom voters, or had a voting system been proven as “tampered with”, etc. … perhaps we would have seen a different result where there was some hard questioning before graciousness could occur as there was in the presidential election of 2000. In that case, I don’t think there was a motivation of pride from Gore in standing up to say ‘let’s make sure this was fair because the winner isn’t clear’ so there wasn’t really a relevancy for God to ‘oppose the proud’. (I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of Kenya as all that stable either.)
In a search for leadership that means so much to the world as the presidency does, that we in our country follow a relatively predictable, agreed upon system shows to the world our integrity as a country and to each other. This election has jazzed up the whole world because, unlike in 2000, there are clear results; unlike previous presidents, a minority has been raised up and given the voice of leadership; and instead of a future that looks quite similar to what we’ve had in the last several years, there is hope for change. As Pat says Obama is God’s instrument and we should honor that.
So what about in the church? If it’s God will be done, then it is so; we don’t get to make the rules for that system. If God causes our defeat, then there is a lesson he is trying to teach us. But when we bring about the defeat of our brother, we tamper with a soul that doesn’t belong to us. Thankfully, we can be forgiven once we confess and repent.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I’m starting to wonder about my/our use of the word defeat.
In our culture, we commonly think about situations in terms of winning and losing, as I did in the blog above. Up through election night, the pundits were completely absorbed in prediction which candidate would fail, and which would lose. But what attracted me to McCain’s speech was how it promoted a strategy for going forward, which made him look less like a “loser” and more like a continuing positive participant in the process. As Lewis pointed out, McEnroe similarly poured all of his energies back into the overall game, so that a “defeat” was just a step along in the process of improvement.
In the spiritual realm, God has some stake in this notion of winning/losing, and he clearly wants us all to be “more than conquerors,” as long as we go through extreme loss in order to get there. First, we’re asked to lose ownership and control of our lives (see Lewis’ blog on slavery) by conceding to Jesus’ ownership and control. Moreover, we’re asked to lose our pride. For example, when a person does us wrong, God demands that we serve them while letting him take care of the vengeance (Romans 12:17-21).
In Romans 8, Paul discusses several aspects of this, then offers a stunning conclusion: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Basically, that means that if we trust him, and if our purposes align with his, there is only “winning.”
That’s a punchline I can live with.