Snatching Victory

Have you felt like you are experiencing life in a mirror?  Not the narcissistic gotta-see-myself kind of pathology – and not the Harry Potter Mirror Of Erised type of reflection where you see an image of your deepest desires having been met. 

There is another sort of mirrored-irony in life where what we want and what we get is often the very opposite of the image we desire.  One of the characteristics of a mirrored reflection is that of the opposite - the reversal of the object being represented.  Just hold up any word to a mirror and it will be turned around backwards. 

 

Such is the case with the well-known and often-used cliché, “Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.”  “To snatch victory from the jaws of defeat” means to suddenly win a contest when it appears that a loss is a forgone conclusion, to succeed in an endeavor through reversal of fortune, skill, effort, of good judgement..

 

Unfortunately, however, in our lives we often experience the mirrored opposite side of this phrase, or, “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” -- also a well known and used cliché.  I think all of us as some point in our lives feel like what we want, and what we get somehow gets turned around leaving us to feel a bit like life is playing some cruel trick on us.

 

Is your life more a “Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,” kind of experience or, like its mirrored reversal “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?”  One is freeing, while the later is confining - like being helplessly crushed upon or trapped with no one to extricate you into a victory life. 



On the night of November 19, 2011, we received the kind of phone call no one wants to receive.  The state trooper on the other end told us our 17-year-old daughter, Rachel, had been in a serious car accident and was being airlifted to the hospital.  

 

 

 

What they didn’t tell us was that she was literally “Snatched from the jaws of defeat.”  Before she could be flown the hospital for the emergency treatment, there was the matter of extricating her from the tangled remnants of her car which had been crushed in-around her.  And, the mechanism that was used by the rescue team to snatch the victory was called “The Jaws Of Life.”

 

Rachel was rescued, but she had nothing to do with it.  She could not be smart enough, faithful enough, good enough – she was asleep in a coma.  All she could do was be rescued.

 

Have you ever felt helpless? Maybe a time when you were faced with some difficult real-life issues? Sometime we find ourselves in a personal situation where life seems to be crushing-in around us and there seems to be no way out – at least by our own power or abilities. 

 

There are certain times where all we can do is be rescued.  There is one who can always snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 

 

 

This Sunday in worship you can hear all about him. His name is Jesus, and He is “The Jaws Of Life.”