If you tuned in to ABC’s Wild World of Sports from 1971 onward, you’re familiar with the opening sequence, in which sportscaster Jim McKay touts “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.” For nearly three decades, “the agony of defeat” was personified by a ski jumper’s spectacular wipeout at Oberstock, Germany.
That ski jumper was Vinko Bogataj of Yugoslavia, whose brief presence on the popular show probably made him the most famous ski jumper in the world, or at least to American sports fans. Over the years, different clips were rotated in to the montage to illustrate the “thrill of victory,” but Vinko Bogataj’s accident remained as the “agony of defeat” through to the show’s end in 1998. He’s the Agony-of-Defeat Guy.
The Bible mentions victory twenty-one times. My favorite reference is found in 1st Corinthians.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
We don’t have to live in defeat when the path to victory is clearly laid out in Scripture.
Think about it.
Gary