Running the Race to the End: A Lesson from a Winless Season
Last season, our football team lost every game. All nine of them. Not close losses either, but the kind of losses that make you dread checking the scoreboard, the kind that follow a team into the locker room and sit there and question, “is all this practice worth it.”
This season opened the same way. Week one, they lost 56-6. A 50-point gap. The running back had 15 rushing attempts for a total of 21 negative yards; negative yards! That kind of number that makes people outside the program ask, quietly, whether it's even worth showing up anymore.
If you've ever been part of something like this, you know the feeling that creeps in after a loss like that. It isn't just disappointment. It's the temptation to wonder if you're wasting your time. If the work you're putting in even matters. If it might just be easier to fold.
That temptation is human. It's old. And it's exactly what the apostle Paul was writing about "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."
Paul wasn't writing to a team riding a winning streak. He was writing to people who were tired, who were being tested, who had every reason to quit. His instruction wasn't "wait until things get easier." It was: run. Keep running. Run in a way that shows you're after something bigger than the scoreboard.
And when you lose, you don't stop training. You train harder. This is the part that separates a team that's building something from a team that's just going through the motions. Losses can be data. They can show you exactly where the weaknesses are — the missed tackles, the busted assignments, the fourth quarter that keeps getting away from you. A team that's serious about finishing well doesn't use a blowout as an excuse to ease off. They use it as the reason to add another rep, watch another hour of film, run one more sprint after everyone else has gone home.
Knowing you won’t quit despite the scoreboard is what keeps you going as a man. Despite those who may be whispering, “you’re never going to win, you’re not good enough.” That is what Satan is whispering in your ear in your spiritual life as well. Keep running the race, keep praying, keep persevering despite the critics. God is also cheering you on.
Run as to win!
Fr. Kevin