With Grace and Humility
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008I 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?