“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” — Lamentations 3:21-23

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Any athlete has experienced a stinging defeat. Maybe it was an important playoff game or a loss to a rival team. Maybe you were right there, close to a championship win, but suffered a heartbreaking defeat. Maybe it was an injury that cut a season or a career short. Maybe you got cut from a team.

Whatever it is, anyone who’s been involved in athletics as a player or coach has experienced disappointments. And no matter how many you endure, it never really seems to get any easier. It’s why you see grown adults cry after losing games in college or professional sports. You put a lot of effort and hope into something, and when it doesn’t end up how you envisioned, it’s natural to experience sadness and disappointment.

What I love about sports are the life lessons you learn along the way. You learn how to accept tough feedback and coaching, which is a crucial skill in school, the workplace and just in life. You learn how to work with others and be a good teammate, sometimes having to take a backseat and let someone else lead. You learn how to be humble and gracious in victory, and you learn how to navigate disappointments. All of these are emotions we experience throughout our lives.

As Christians, we have hope in the midst of our disappointments, and that hope is in Christ. Lamentations 3:21-23 says, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Loss stings. Sometimes it lingers. But as Christians, we know loss never gets the final word.

In that passage above, the author Jeremiah doesn’t pretend everything is fine. The Book of Lamentations is filled with grief over the destruction of Jerusalem. He knows what it feels like to experience devastating loss. Yet in the middle of that grief, he makes a conscious decision to remember God’s faithfulness.

Imagine how Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers must have felt when he went down in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals with a torn Achilles. They were that close to capping a miraculous run with an NBA championship, just for it to end like that.

And disappointment and loss can consume us if we let them. We replay the game and try to do mental gymnastics to change reality and think, “If just this thing would’ve happened, we could’ve won.” But eventually, we have to look beyond what happened and remember who God is.

That doesn’t mean pretending the loss or disappointment doesn’t hurt. Faith doesn’t require us to ignore those emotions or rush through the grief. Jeremiah gives us permission to lament, and we know God is present with us in our sadness. Jeremiah shows us that we can bring those emotions honestly to God while still holding onto hope.

As Christians, we know our hope isn’t ultimately in winning or making the team or staying healthy. Those are great things, but they’re temporary. Our hope is found in Christ, whose faithfulness doesn’t change with the scoreboard.

— Cole Claybourn

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