Woo Hoo It’s Wednesday

Recently, in conjunction with one of our FSBA conferences, I had the opportunity to go bowling with our Board of Directors. There were about 35 of us and this was being used as a team building activity. We were divided into teams of 5 and competed for the grand prize which I have no clue what it was.

Now, I need to tell you something right up front. I am not a good bowler. Actually, saying I’m “not a good bowler” may be giving me a little too much credit. I was bad. Really bad. And I wasn’t alone. There was an older lady on our team who had never bowled before. We figured out pretty quickly that we had absolutely no chance of winning.

But something interesting happened. Once winning was pretty much off the table, we started celebrating everything. Someone knocked down a few pins? We celebrated.

Someone did a little better than the frame before? We celebrated.

Someone managed to keep the ball out of the gutter? That deserved a celebration too!

The scores weren’t impressive, but we had a wonderful time.

And I’ve thought about that experience since then.

Maybe there’s a lesson in it.

Sometimes we spend too much time looking at the scoreboard.

We compare ourselves to other people. We notice who seems to be succeeding and who isn’t. We notice who got the strike, who got the spare and who threw another gutter ball. And if we’re not careful, we can start believing that the only things worth celebrating are the big things.

But Scripture tells us something different. Paul tells us: “Encourage one another and build each other up.” He doesn’t say, “Encourage one another when they get a strike.” He doesn’t say, “Celebrate people only when they win.” He simply tells us to encourage one another.

I think sometimes God asks us to notice the things that may never make it onto anybody’s scoreboard. The person who kept going when they wanted to quit. The person who tried something they’d never done before. The person who showed kindness when nobody noticed. The person who made a little progress. The person who simply showed up. Those things deserve to be celebrated too.

And then there are the gutter balls. We all throw them. We make mistakes. We say the wrong thing. We make a decision we wish we could take back. We disappoint ourselves.

Thankfully, God doesn’t look at us and say, “Well, that’s your score. Too bad.” He gives us another frame. And another. And another.

That’s grace.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons our bowling night was so much fun. Nobody expected perfection from anybody else. Nobody was keeping track of who wasn’t measuring up. We laughed. We encouraged each other. We celebrated the little victories.

And maybe that’s a pretty good picture of what Christian community is supposed to look like. A place where we aren’t constantly comparing scores. A place where it’s safe to try. A place where it’s okay to occasionally throw a gutter ball. A place where somebody is standing behind you saying, “That’s okay. Pick up the ball. You get another turn.”

So this week, maybe we should pay a little less attention to the scoreboard and a little more attention to the people bowling beside us. Look for the small victories. Notice the progress. Encourage the effort. Celebrate the person who is trying something for the first time.

And when somebody throws a gutter ball, and they will, remind them that the game isn’t over. Because sometimes the people around us don’t need someone keeping score. They just need someone cheering them on.