“It’s Not a Competition”

By Pastor Erin Stenberg

I like to win. I don’t like to lose.

In the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, there is a wonderful song called “Anything you can do… I can do better.” It is a duet between a man and a woman, each trying to outdo the other with increasingly complicated tasks. Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you. I can be greater, I can sing louder, I am superior, I’m the big attraction, I’m the major one. The battle continues, “No you Can’t, Yes I can… No you can’t, Yes I can.”

It’s not a competition. I have heard this phrase used in jest, or a sincere reminder that there are times, when we tend to become a little bit too invested in “winning.” Ironically, for me, my competitive edge is not with large things in life: jobs, relationships, friendships, power, control; as if one could “win” at relationships or jobs or any of these things. If we are blessed to do what we love, love what we do, and love the people in our lives, we all win.

No, my downfall…is board games. If we sit down to play chess, or cards, Chutes and Ladders or Settlers of Catan, I will seem pleasant and I will enjoy myself, but I want to win!! I have to remind myself, “It’s not a competition.”

I love this passage from Romans 12:10 which reads, “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” Now, that’s a competition we can all be on board for! Not an unhealthy desire to come out on top, or a practice of comparing ourselves to others, but pushing each other to greater acts of love and compassion.

When we live into God’s call to love our neighbors, to show honor to one another, to care for this world we live in and all the living things who inhabit it…. that’s the best competition ever!