The best game ever

It was the final game of the season and last chance to avoid a season shutout. Underdogs to say the least, a new team to this grade school program, and every player new to the game of basketball.

They were lousy, losing every game to superior teams. It would have been difficult to watch except they had a good coach, played hard and improved each week. One of the forwards was small and had a congenital leg-length discrepancy, which he made up for in zeal. Our son played the shooting guard position, not well, but with no self-consciousness or fear. Not one played well, but all played all-in, for each other and the love of playing. "Please Lord, let them have this one win!"

Unfortunately, the other team was one of the best, but our guys played like they didn't know. Determined to end with a win, they played their guts out and the mismatch was never reflected in the score -- at times only a two-point game. The little guard stole on one of the best players, and laughed all the way down court. All our guys played like they were possessed. No one could believe this was not a blowout.

Concessions were forgotten for the game. It was all heart and want-to, playing with passion until tears rolled down their cheeks -- literally, blood, sweat and salty tears. It won over the whole gymnasium. Opposing fans were pulling for us. It was an inspirational thing of beauty and agony that ever lives in my mind. It was down to the wire. And according to the big scoreboard, the underdogs lost again, but afterward, everyone congratulated them as if they'd won. And in a real enough way they had.

There's more than one way to measure triumph, and the world's scoreboard does not tell all. In the kingdom of God, there's a different kind of scorekeeping and a contrasting way of winning. The first are last. The last are first. Not about first place, but faithfulness, funded by the faithful one. Not about giving the most, but giving all. They can deny you the official trophy, but not the real prize. In the kingdom of God, strength is found in weakness, and losers can be made to win. All those who endure to the end shall be saved.

ROD PARCHMAN is a minister in Cunningham, Tennessee, with ties to Bollinger County.