Can't Win For Losing
My dad was from West Texas and had a catchy phrase for almost every circumstance in life. Some of them drove me crazy. Every time I saw something I wanted in a store or at the mall, my dad would say: “If you got the money, honey, I got the time.” It is fun to say. It kind of rolls off the tongue. Try it. I’ll bet as you said it it also frustrated you. Yeah, it was very frustrating for me. I had no problem understanding that phrase but some of them I didn’t understand at all. There was one in particular I didn’t understand until I lived it.
Unlike his famous phrase, “son, you look like a dying calf in a hailstorm,” he only used this phrase to refer to his own experiences. Most of those experiences were failures. Throughout my dad’s life I watched this amazing man run a laundromat business, a washing machine repair business, a boat business, an oil business, a computer programming business, a personal computer sales business to name just a few. They never quite succeeded and when the failure of his business came home to him he would say: “I can’t win for losing.”
I didn’t understand that at all as a kid. My life was out in front of me and my parents provided wonderfully for me so failure was barely something I had experienced. Losing a soccer game or having a crush break up with me was as bad as it got and the face I made during those times usually brought the “dying calf in a hail storm” comment. In my adult life, I have experienced failure much more deeply than the soccer losses and dating break ups. The failures I have experienced have been stifling, crushing, dispiriting and sometimes blindingly, blackening and broad. In so many attempts to find success it has seemed that some invisible barriers, stumbling blocks or unforeseen turns have prevented me from achieving the dreams that are so readily visible and seemingly in front of me. The losses of my life kept me from wining the dreams. Now I understand his phrase perfectly.
I can’t win for losing…
However, maybe losing was winning?
he apostle Peter lost big time! He made a promise to follow Jesus even to death. However, he couldn't even own up to knowing him when things got really dangerous. After meeting the resurrected Christ, his losing led to the greatest experience of grace he had ever known. Without the failure, the success of grace would never have come.
I bet you have some failures that brought amazing grace. I do.
