Losing Bites

This past spring I started playing in an over-30 soccer league.  Even though I did not play soccer as a kid I love sports and thought this would be a great way to get some exercise and meet some new folks.  Keep in mind this is a recreational league, so win or lose we are all supposed to be out there having fun.  Only, I hate losing.  Losing is not fun.  Losing bites.
My wife is capable of playing a game and, win or lose, enjoying herself.  I envy her.  I don't understand her because, as I mentioned before, losing sucks and takes the fun out of whatever I am doing.  Still, I wish I had her capacity to not be so competitive about everything.  I am getting better.  In the not so distant past if I lost a game I would spend a significant amount of time trying to figure out what went wrong (aka brooding).  On more than one occasion I have been accused, wrongly I might add, of altering the rules of a game to ensure victory.  Today, I only obsess about a loss for one or two hours, tops.  I am a model citizen when it comes to following the rules and have even learned how to let my kids beat me at some things.  Sometimes.  Losing, however, still sucks the life out of me.
Yesterday afternoon I was out on the soccer pitch, in the middle of a brutal summer day, getting my butt kicked by a guy who was at least ten years younger and twice as fast as myself.  Fun is not a word I would use to describe the experience.  My age and life-long lack of foot speed are not excuses.  I got beat, repeatedly, and I am still mad about it (give me a break it's only been what, 18 hours.  It's not like I can't let go). What really ticks me off is the fact that 100 times out of a 100 this guy is going to outplay me.  I did not have an off day.  Yesterday was about as good as it gets when I play soccer.  Which means every time I play against this guy I am going to lose.  Did I mention that I hate losing.
Being competitive is not a bad thing.  Imagine what the world would be like if people did not have a little drive, a desire to push themselves and others to achieve great things.  But it can go too far and rather than trying to make the world a better place a desire to win can become an obsession with not losing.  My need to win at everything I do is, I think, tied to a need to be perfect.  Any chink in the armor is unacceptable.  Every loss a sign that my best is not good enough.  What I don't understand is why I feel like I have to be perfect, why I am afraid to lose.
Maybe it has to do with a fear that unless I never mess up God will not like or love me.  Yes, in some really warped way getting beat on the soccer field ( or at Monopoly, or Guitar Hero) threatens my relationship with God.  Or so I think in the deep dark places of my mind.  Some Christian communities worship a God who is very strict.  There are laws to be obeyed, perfection to be obtained and punishment for those who miss the mark.  I am not part of one of those communities.  I do not believe that is the nature and character of God. I believe in a God of grace and forgiveness and who knew from the beginning that we, humans, would never be perfect.  That is until I lose.  Then the God of compassion and understanding gets replaced by the demanding judge.  Strange, I know.
Slowly I am getting to a place where I understand that my losses in life, rather than undermining my relationship with God, actually strengthen it.   Yes, I still strive to get it right all the time.  I doubt that I will ever, ever enjoying losing.  Yet, through my failures I have grown to appreciate and value grace and understanding and see how God allows them to transform my life.  God uses my losses to make me more compassionate and caring towards others and, eventually, towards myself.  One day I might even begin to love myself as God loves me.  What a great day that will be.  In the meantime I will try to stop being afraid to lose and use my competitive desires in positive ways.  But losing still bites.