An Underdog Rediscovered by Susan Caldwell

I have been spending the morning thinking a lot about why I cheer for the underdog. Or most honestly, why I gloat at the loss of the over confident, arrogant self-promoting, know-it-alls, and love watching the under achiever win based on what appears their heart and guts alone. Maybe this is because all of my life I have seen myself as an underdog…

Saying something like, O how the mighty have fallen…or pride comes before a fall, sound holy and at least throughout my life have proven to be statements of truth. But, a lump seems to be forming in my throat and I find myself realizing that the line between the victory of an underdog and the loss of those who appear to be self-righteous winners is thin and very tricky to discern. My decision about who are winners and who deserve to be winners, places me smack dab in the middle of the kettle calling the pot black…

When brought face to face with the sin of judging others I crumble under the weight of self-condemnation.

Having spent a majority of my childhood and youth having my self worth and value measured by the perspective of perhaps untrustworthy people, and finding only later in life that they were wrong in their assessment of my value and worth. Most importantly because many of them lacked the belief in a God greater than themselves: One who does take lives and transforms them: One who promises to use the weaknesses of those who follow after him to his greater strength and good, who can see beyond the present moment and beyond the present capabilities of an insecure, emotionally unstable girl and know what he can and will do with those scars and weaknesses and untapped unseen potentials.

You would think that I would never speak about another person’s heart or motives or abilities, but I have and I do. And having recently found myself looking straight into a mirror; finding I have ascribed motive and call and ability to those I am walking through life with, I am convicted, ashamed and (nearly) at a loss for words.

I do not know the will of God. I do not know who he will use today to show me a bigger picture of himself and what he is able to do with the lives of people who I have judged as incompetent, wrong or, again most honestly, just not doing life the way I think they should. Whether that is raising their children with all the incredible wisdom I have/had (which, every day I am brought to my knees by, as I see what mercy and grace and blessings God has poured out on me and my children)…all the way to how I would run the country, the world, the universe.

O God, forgive me, a sinner deeply in need of the saving grace of your Son.

There are two things I know to be true to all people. Everyone wants to be loved and cared for, and no one wants to be judged or condemned. And each time God has mercifully allowed me to walk closer to one I have harshly judged and condemned, just near enough to see their hearts, I fall to my knees immediately aware that I am the one who condemns me…I am a Pharasee…I am the soldier who mocked…I am a leader who is not worthy to follow…a mother who has (and probably until death continue to) scar my children’s hearts…a wife who does not honor her husband…a friend who betrays…a sinner who cry’s out O God please do not forsake me as quickly as I forsake those around me when they do not measure up to my expectations of how they should appear.

And they will know we are Christians by our love…who we follow…who has first loved us…and taught us to love…

I am so very grateful to those who saw me as Christ does, who loved me when I was not demonstrating behavior that matched theirs or others expectations…who remain faithful to my life today and through their love are teaching me how to love the way Christ does.