{"id":43711,"date":"2012-01-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/"},"modified":"2012-01-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T00:00:00","slug":"why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most athletes believe that god\/fate is on their side &hellip;. Indeed, when they win a championship, talk of &quot;destiny&quot; fills the postgame locker room. What must be confusing to these highly trained, well-paid professionals is when they <em>lose<\/em> the game. Does it mean that God doesn&#39;t like them, that he wasn&#39;t for them, that they weren&#39;t as special as they thought? Indeed, would any of them have the guts to admit they were <em>destined<\/em> to lose?<\/p>\n\n<p>I&#39;m sure many have noticed that we never hear athletes during the postgame interviews thank God for their loss. It seems the god of athletics only shows up when players win. But &hellip; [the apostle] Paul believed that the God of Israel delights in showing up in the midst of loss&mdash;the resurrection of Christ proves it. God turns losing into gain, death into life, sorrow into joy, weakness into strength, futility into glory &hellip;.<\/p>\n\n<p>So I can imagine Paul throwing his arm around the athlete who&#39;s just lost the World Series [or the Super Bowl] and saying &hellip; &quot;Son of Adam, life is a game and we&#39;re all destined to lose. Let&#39;s go celebrate the good news.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3474,3650,3726,3931,4390,4391,5066,5067,5102,5278],"tax_ctp_topics":[401],"class_list":["post-43711","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-beatitudes-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-competition","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-failure","tax_ctp_tags-losing","tax_ctp_tags-loss","tax_ctp_tags-sports","tax_ctp_tags-sportsmanship","tax_ctp_tags-success","tax_ctp_tags-winning-losing"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most athletes believe that god\/fate is on their side &hellip;. 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Does it mean that God doesn&#039;t like them, that he wasn&#039;t for them, that they Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/\",\"name\":\"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-23T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-23T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-athletes-can-lose-and-still-thank-god\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Athletes Can Lose and Still Thank God - CT Pastors","og_description":"Most athletes believe that god\/fate is on their side &hellip;. 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