Unlikely Winners

We played mini golf today. Out there among the slightly run-down greens and the tiny replica of the Alamo, we played some really, really bad golf. I didn’t hit it hard enough (it kept rolling back to me), Adelade hit it too hard (it kept flying off the course), and Chad was complaining about the “inferior putters” that were obviously tripping up his game. But, there were two kids who managed to play some pretty good mini golf today, and they happened to be the two least likely: Sawyer and Emerald.

Now, at seven years old, Sawyer isn’t especially fond of taking the time to line up a shot. He likes whacking the ball and just waiting to see where it lands. But twice today he made a hole-in-one. Literally without even trying. And, if that wasn’t enough, three year old Emerald waltzed up to the tee and hit the ball directly into the hole.

I’m not sure how they managed it, but I know that the rest of us tried all night to get some kind of success like that, and it never happened.

The truth is that sometimes the last person you expect to be a winner ends up taking the whole thing.

It happens a lot in the Bible. Moses killed a guy and wasn’t much of a talker, but he wrote the first five books of the Bible. Abraham was a liar, and he ended up being the father of God’s chosen people. David stole a man’s wife by having him killed, and God called David a man after God’s own heart. Jesus’ mother was a teenager from a poor family. His best friends were rough fishermen. Paul did terrible things to Christian people, and then he wrote a huge chunk of the Bible. Peter was just a mess, and he denied that he even knew Jesus, but God used him in incredible ways in the church.

And then there’s me and you. Let’s face it. We’re unlikely winners. We think and do what we shouldn’t, and we don’t think and do what we should. We aren’t God’s best and brightest. Not even close. Yet, here we are. Heirs to everything that He has. Given the title Holy Sons and Daughters of the One True God, despite the fact that we know we don’t deserve it. He is so good at taking wild, messed up, all-wrong people, and turning us into the big winners. We win His love. His grace. His mercy. His righteousness. It turns out that we who were least expected to come out on top have won it all.

Let’s live like it.