The Winning Blues

You probably haven't heard, but Sunday the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will battle to determine who is the NFL Champion. To wear a Super Bowl ring is certainly a privildege that only a few men have achieved. The dream of being on the winning Super Bowl team is in the mind of every young boy at some time. Backyards across the country have served as imaginary gridirons on which boys have rehearsed their Super Bowl victory dances and speeches.

Also, boys act out winning the World Series with a mighty swing of the bat. But, after you win the Super Bowl or the World Series, what's next?

In October 1977, I became a teenager. During that month one of the most memorable World Series games in baseball history was held. In Game 6, Reggie Jackson, "Mr. October," hit three home runs helping the Yankees, managed by Billy Martin, defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers for the championship. Reggie Jackson has stated that day was the "most memorable in my career." However, for Billy Martin, who throughout the season was on the "Hot Seat," what should have been a time of great fulfillment did not seem to be satisfying.

Last year, the library in Lucedale was selling several books for a $1.00. One of the books was The Last Yankee: The Turbulent Life of Billy Martin. I bought it and last night I read through it. In the biography, David Falkner described the manner in which Billy celebrated the World Series Victory of 1977.

For Billy, the moment, just as certainly, was not about friendship but about winning. At the very least, he still had his job. But at what should have been the summit of his career, the one World Championship he would claim as a manager, the joy and satisfaction he obviously felt were peculiarly diluted. He went to a victory party in Hasbrouck Heights after the game, and there, in the crush of guests including his wife and son who had come up for the series, the wild force of the season and of his life flying apart caught up with him. He quarreled publicly with Gretchen (his wife), finally taking his drink glass and smashing it to the floor. He fled from the party held to celebrate his greatest triumph, unable to get a handle on the deep and twisting emotions that kept him from fully claiming this moment for which he had been waiting so long.

"I drove to a little bar nearby all by myself," he wrote in his autobiography," and I sat there and rested where no one could bother me."

We all know that accomplishments are not alwyas satisfying. Once one goal is reached, more goals and expectations are looming above our heads.

The Bible says, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul(Matthew 16:26)?" While we should seek to do our best and perform at a high level, we must keep our priorities in line. Whatever we accomplish should be for the glory of God.

Our identity should not be wrapped up in "who" we are, but "whose" we are. In our relationship with Jesus Christ, we can peace in our victories and defeats.