Losses?

(Michael, don't take this loss too hard. Another Turkey Bowl race in seven months)



“Old man Sai lost his horse. Who is to say that it wasn’t a blessing?” (塞翁失馬焉知非福) goes a Chinese saying. I have lost many horses in my life, and many of these incidents turned out to be good things. Let me list a couple of them to illustrate my point.

Some romances that I had in my reckless youth did not work out, but it was good. Had I married one of those girls, divorce could easily have been the result and, more seriously, I would have missed out on the opportunity to marry the lovely Cornelia, which would have been tragic indeed.

Another horse that I lost was that I absolutely could not do math. All our boys’ math genes are from their mother. Because of this serious academic flaw, I became an outcast in the world of academia and was turned down by many credible colleges on both continents. In fact, the greatest failure of my academic pursuit at age 18 caused me to enroll in a non-government-accredited Christian college (a “wild chicken college,” it was called). Here I heard the gospel for the very first time, and subsequently met my future wife. What a great loss? No, what a great success!

I had great trouble passing my GRE during the beginning of my Doctorial studies at Ole Miss and had greater trouble passing my comprehensive exams toward the end. This forced me to leave the university and become a pastor, first in LA and then in Lubbock. After fifteen years of pastoral work, I have begun to realize that being a servant of God is more rewarding than being a professor in a college teaching English literature. It wasn’t that much of a loss after all.

Don’t be heartbroken about your losses. Many of them may just turn out to be - forgive the cliché - blessings in disguise. Praise the Lord for them and move on. Your future is filled with thousands of possibilities of joy, so don’t waste your time mourning about your past losses. Remember, the guru has spoken and he is always right.