Soccer and Sanctification

Sometimes moving backwards helps you move forwards.

I don’t know how many soccer fans I have reading my blog, but I love me some soccer. The World Cup, which happens every 4 years, is one of my favorite sporting events. And even though the USA choked its way out of qualifying, I still watch as many of the matches as I am able. (I may or may not have them on in the background at my office.)

If you have ever watched a soccer match, you may have noticed that when a team has the ball, sometimes they will pass it or kick it behind them instead of towards their opposing team’s goal. Teams will do this to set up future plays or to create space from their opponent or to get out of impending trouble. They go backwards to set up a better path forward and, hopefully, to potentially set up a score.

As I was watching a match the other day seeing this backwards passing happen repeatedly, it reminded me of the patient process of sanctification and how sometimes we take 2 steps back and then 3 steps forwards.

Sanctification, which is the process of becoming holy, does have setbacks. It’s not a 24 hour a day victory over every sin. Only Jesus has ever been able to accomplish that feat. While the overall trajectory of the Christian life is moving forward, there are times we move backwards as well.

But, I would submit to you, that those spiritual defeats can sometimes set us up for spiritual victories.

Think of the lessons that King David learned when he took some steps back by committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering Uriah. Didn’t God use those spiritual defeats to instruct King David about the forgiveness and purity of the God he worshipped? Who better to write Psalm 51 and 32 than the one who knew spiritual defeat?

As the song title says, “Take Time to Be Holy.” Sanctification is a process – “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). To lay aside the old self and put on the new self, we must acknowledge that not every decision we make along the way is going to be a God-pleasing one. But as we make foolish decisions, they will remind us and teach us how to make better decisions.

Next time you experience spiritual defeat, ask yourself, “How can I respond better next time so I can move forward?

Sometimes we learn the way forward when we go backwards.