I hate losing.

Like, I really hate it.

I played competitive soccer for thirteen years, from age five to age eighteen. Barring injury, I would have played in college as well. Why did I begin a journey of such longevity? Because my brothers decided before I did that they were going to play soccer. And, I hate losing. For real.

Everything in my life, ever since I can remember, has been driven by competition. I would like to think that my sometimes overdrawn competitive nature has channeled somewhat positively into ambition, but it's no secret that I can't help but take any type of game too seriously. I'm *that* person, you could say.

I think a lot of us are this way. Especially since the advent of social media, comparison has become second nature. Whatever we're wearing, watching, believing, or even thinking has to pass muster when pitted against our neighbor. Or classmate. Or Alpha Apple Pie's newest pledge.

We can't give ourselves a break. Even when we don't know who we're competing against, we start competing against our self-expectations. We compete against what we wish we saw in the mirror, on the gradebook, or in the bank account.

Maybe you've had a day like this recently :

You wake up. Well, barely. Just enough to hit the snooze button for the first time of four before you actually crawl out of bed and flip the light switch on. You rub the cloudiness out of your eyes and the green LED clock screen shows 8:27. Wait - 8:27?! You missed your 8 A.M. You curse yourself out a little bit as you wander, defeated, into your bathroom. You're kidding me right now, you think as you look at your hair. ANOTHER breakout??

You throw on a raggedy pair of high school sweats and a baseball cap to hide the bad hair day that seems to be a part of your morning routine by now. You grab the textbooks scattered on your desk and reach for your computer when you realize - dead. Your computer is dead. You forgot to plug it in last night before you fell asleep.

Angrily, you yank the charger out of its power strip and shove it into your backpack as you walk out the door. You walk the now well-worn path to your on-campus Starbucks, promising yourself that you'll actually start that cleanse diet tomorrow. Tomorrow. You'll get your life together then.

For me, these days happen far too often for my comfort. Inevitably, after mornings like this one, we tend to write off the rest of our day. We feel defeated, we feel like we've lost, like we've cheated ourselves of a happy or productive day. And the rest of the world seems just a little extra...perfect. You know?

It's so easy to look out at the world on those mornings and to feel overwhelmed by our deficits. There always seems to be someone who has it all figured out, all of the exact same stuff we simply can't seem to do. We can't get it right. We panic. We've lost control. Maybe I'm not cut out for college, I whisper to myself. Maybe I'm just a total loser.

I was having one of those days when a worship song came on my Spotify shuffle playlist. The song was "Resurrecting" by Elevation Worship, and these are some of the lyrics :

"Your Name, Your Name is victory

All praise will rise to Christ our King

By Your Spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat

The resurrected King is resurrecting me

In Your Name I come alive to declare Your victory

The resurrected King is resurrecting me"

Here's what I realized: on my own, I am pretty much a "loser", so to speak. I can't do it all on my own. I mess up (a lot). My insufficiency is glaring. That's pretty bad news.

But the King of the universe didn't let the story end there. He knows we come up short. In small ways, like missing our 8 A.M. and failing 4 quizzes in the first two weeks of school (oops), and in big ways. So He sent His Son to be a sacrifice for OUR mistakes. To not only atone for them, but to ascribe in place of our failures a victory so great that we can not comprehend it. That is stinkin' AWESOME, you guys.

You may feel defeated, but You are a child of the King. You have authority to walk in all victory. You may feel deficient, but He is your fullness and your sufficiency.

So. As I sit here and drink my second iced mocha of the day while catching up on studying that should've been accomplished days ago, I will rejoice. I will rejoice because my shortcomings have been overcome.

Through Jesus, I am abundantly victorious. Through Jesus, I will rise from the ashes of defeat. And so will you.