The Sweet Taste of Defeat

Romans 8:36-39, “Just as it is written, ‘For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

A pastor wrote me today regarding a business matter and said, “I feel defeated.”

My reply was the scripture above. Oh what a glorious sweet taste defeat can be when seen from the conquering perspective of Christ. I have died… but Christ has risen. I am defeated, but Jesus has victory in mind… the victory of experiencing the love of the Father as those things that separate us from Him are put to death.

Certainly when defeat is first tasted it is very bitter. But swallow it with eyes wide open looking for Christ in its shadow, and the sweet after taste can more than erase any memories of defeat’s painful tartness.

None of it, no amount of defeat or pain can separate us from the love of God. And though we so often don’t want to admit it, so many times the defeat is actually the most perfect form of God’s love. Our ways are defeated so that His ways can come through. Our thoughts are shown imperfect so that His perfect thought can shine through. Our inadequacies are revealed so that His perfect sufficiency can stand alone.

Using my favorite story from the Bible when the disciples and Jesus were in the boat during the storm we see that Jesus slept and the disciples panicked. The disciples were experiencing defeat. They tasted the bitterness of the storm. They heard Christ’ rebuke for waking him, but the sweetness of their defeat brought a calming of the storm. It brought a new revelation of Who Christ is.

So there really is not defeat in Christ, but defeat does lead us to Christ. We panic in a lack of faith, only to see Jesus was perfect in His. We are defeated in our weakness thus allowing Christ to be strong. We have troubles from our sins, and in that defeat begin to not only see the errors of character, but see the perfection of His. In the strangest of ways sin causes defeat, but if we are focused on and loving Jesus that defeat ends up being the cross that actually crucifies the sin. So perhaps sin, for those in Christ, is self-defeating in many ways.

God has good plans for you and me today. If we are defeated it is because we have tasted of our plans, and God is not going to allow our plans to separate us from His love. Praise God for defeat. And thank God for the cross coming to bear on us so that we can be shaped… conformed to the image of Christ.

For the pastor that started this story… his “feeling” of defeat is because he wants something a certain way, and it is not turning out to be so. God has a different plan; he simply needs to stumble upon it.

As I looked for a picture to symbolize the message I am trying to convey I came across a picture of Iwo Jima and found it so appropriate. Because in every battle there are winners and there are losers. The defeat that tastes so sweet is when God wins, and we (that corrupt sinful man) loose ourselves only to find Jesus. For the men’s group I attend that is called Iwo Jima I see us as a group of men willing to fight, to lose our lives, to overcome ourselves that we might know Him more. Yep… defeat tastes pretty sweet.