Last Sunday night, I was at youth group. It was a game night; we had a short lesson at the end of the night, but the majority of the time, we were playing games in the gym. Theoretically, I should have enjoyed this, but I found a lot of the time I really was NOT having fun, but I was complaining.
Our youth group is for kids from 6-12th grade. Since the school year is about over, I'm now considered a senior, so I'm the oldest person in my youth group. Because of this, I (Generally speaking) am better at most of the games then most of the people in my youth group. This is why I was complaining; I was getting frustrated that my team wasn't winning the team games.
God has blessed me and made me pretty athletic, so in general, sports and things like it come naturally to me. But too often, I forget that not everyone has that, and instead of just enjoying a time of fellowship with other believers, I get worked up that not everyone is on the same skill level as me. I'm very competitive, and losing is frustrating to me, but winning isn't the only thing that matters. If I'm spending the whole night complaining, I'm going to be in a bad mood and so are the people around me.
While being competitive can definitely be a good thing, it can also be very detrimental if I am trying to hold others to my own very high standards (which I frequently can't even meet!) I need to be more uplifting to teammates. While I wasn't criticizing or yelling at them, inside I was starting to lose my temper.
So this week, I am trying to find a balance. I'll keep my competitiveness, but instead of getting angry when we are losing, I'll try to be more encouraging and uplifting to my teammates. We may not come out winners. That's going to happen sometimes, we can't win all of them. But my relationships with others are more important than winning, and I need to keep that in perspective!