The Tournament of Life

So, I joined the World Cup bracket pool at work - and miracle of all miracles, I won!!!!!!!!!

ending totals for everyone in the pool

Is this because of my extensive knowledge of soccer? no! I used logic, and first-timer dumb luck, I simply reasoned that the first seeded team never wins - so I picked Germany, the second seeded team (I got most everything else wrong).
 

my "winning" bracket

My personal experience with soccer ended and began as a 5yr old.  I was on a team of talented soccer players (they grew up to later comprise the varsity team in high school), and I played defense.  So how did I spend most of my soccer games?  Sitting down picking daisies and dandelions out of the grass.  I remember my dad yelling at me to get up - but it seemed so silly to me to stand there doing nothing when our offense was down at the other end of the field scoring goals.  I believe that was the one and only year I was enrolled in AYSO.

But I've been thinking a lot about tournaments lately, and life, and if life were a tournament.  I've been really fed up with recurring and repeated trials in my life.  I want to yell at the heavens - I've done this before, why do I have to do it again, what did I not learn the last time?  I feel like we should pass a test and be able to move on.  But that doesn't appear to be how it works.  And suddenly it dawned on me, that the trials of life are like a tournament.

If you enter a tennis tournament, and you win your first match (or set, or whatever it's called in tennis) you don't immediately retire.  The reward for winning is another match with a more difficult opponent.  Oy.  Sigh.

So in life, my tests and struggles and trials aren't going to be a one and done thing.  Making it through a battle is a momentary success - but I haven't won the war.  And many future battles may be fought over the same patch of ground.  Winning is simply gaining experience, and perhaps some confidence in myself, and hopefully preparing me for the next round that may be the same game, same rules, same technique and strategy, but a different person returning my shots.

The glorious thing about it is that life isn't a competition against our neighbors, it's a battle only within ourselves, perhaps to conquer the natural man.  Somehow, someway, Heavenly Father has created His perfect plan, where we can all be the winners in our tournaments of life.  The trick is simply that after every win (or loss) we keep playing.  You never really fail, unless you fail to try, because in this case - it's an infinite elimination tournament.