The Loser's Guide to God's Grace

I love Joel Osteen. He has such a great smile and sweet spirit. He speaks kindly of everyone, and his sermons are a guaranteed pick-me-up. What’s not to love? I love his books, too. When my husband was dealing with depression, my whole prescription was: let’s watch a Joel Osteen podcast every morning and read a chapter from his book every night. How can you be depressed with this kind of positive affirmation and promise of God’s blessings? (I don’t know if that works, btw, my husband thought it was a lame idea and wouldn’t try it.) One of Joel’s staffers wrote an article about how he believes Joel’s ministry is blessed because Jesus feels like Joel is a friend of sinners, and He loves that. I love that, too. I can’t say enough nice things about our Houston boy Joel Osteen. His wife, too, seems really nice, and really pretty. They are a gorgeous couple. And very successful. With his books, and their church, and his TV program and their preaching tours. I expect they bring happiness and hope to a lot of folks. Except to some losers like me who have a tendency to look at someone like Joel and say, “Well of course it is easy for him to believe in God’s blessings. He was born to a nice Christian family, married a beautiful Christian girl, inherited a great ministry that his dad started, and now has a lovely successful life. What cause would he ever have to doubt God’s goodness?” I know, of course, that Joel has heartaches like everyone else, but on the surface of it, there don’t appear to be that many reasons why he would ever doubt God. Because he’s a winner! He’s successful. Everything goes his way. For him to tell me, a pudgy, struggling writer and bitter childless old lady that God is good and God wants to promote me ... well, a part of me could easily just say: That’s what you think because you don’t have my problems. Joel’s a winner. I’m a loser. Simple as that. Now here is where I want to speak to you especially if you too are a loser. If your dream didn’t come true, if God didn’t bless and promote you, if you struggle with your self-image, your weight, your health, your kids, your lack of kids, your career, your finances, your emotions, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, whatever the heck your problem is — if you’re not good enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not courageous enough — if you’ve ever thought to yourself that it’s easy for Joel Osteen because he doesn’t have your problems ... I have something to tell you! And you can believe me, because I have been in your shoes, and I know how hard it is to be you, and yet I still have good news about God’s grace for you. For us losers, the big win of God’s grace is not as apparent as it is for the Joel Osteens of the world, but it is every bit as wonderful and amazing and overwhelming and game-changing as you can possibly imagine. And it’s yours, for the taking. Trust me on this. I know. I’m a loser.