Release Date: November 19th, 2025Joy or Grief - We Walk Forward
- by Greg Yantzi
For almost all baseball fans, the fall of 2025 will be etched in our memories as one of the most exciting playoff runs in history. And for Blue Jays fans? Well… that excitement is now permanently stitched together with a knot of disappointment! Live sports can do that to us—it pulls us in, winds us up, and leaves us somewhere between exhilaration and heartbreak. It’s entertaining, absolutely. It can even teach us a few things about resilience, teamwork, and humility. But at the end of the day, it is entertainment. The wins and losses don’t actually define us.
In real life, when we “lose,” it’s not a matter of a missed pitch or a botched play in extra innings. Real losses crack us open. They go deeper than anything a scoreboard can measure. We see people around us who lose jobs, homes, relationships. People who feel their hope slip through their fingers when a doctor gives news no family ever wants to hear. People whose world collapses when someone they love dies. Those are the curveballs of life that leave us standing frozen at the plate—shocked, grieving, wondering if the dreams we held will ever be revived. That kind of grief settles into your bones. It doesn’t just “go away.”
Win or lose, success or heartbreak, joy or grief—we walk forward as beloved children of God.
When I sit with my own experiences of faith and sport - a few things rise to the surface. Sure, I love the competition. But I also know this: we walk this planet together. Our faith doesn’t call us to “Game 7” living. We’re not here to defeat one another or come out on top. That’s a sports model—not one for faith and life! Isaiah paints an entirely different picture: “All peoples will stream to the mountain of God… and they will no longer learn how to make war.”
That is not a win-lose vision. And it’s not even a win-win vision. It’s something deeper: wholeness. Restoration. A world where everyone gets to live in peace, not because they won something, but because God has restored everything.
In Isaiah’s vision, disputes disappear because justice is shared. Borders soften because compassion expands. Nations care for one another. Even the people we are tempted to write off are wrapped in God’s embrace. Everybody belongs. Everybody is restored. Everybody is welcomed into God’s peace.
Yes, the players who lost Game 7 will carry that sting for a long time. That kind of disappointment has a way of lingering. But they also know there is next season. Life moves on. New opportunities rise. They lace up their cleats again because that is what players do.
And maybe that speaks to us, too.
Win or lose, success or heartbreak, joy or grief—we walk forward as beloved children of God. Not defined by the outcomes, but by the One who restores us. Not trapped in win-lose thinking, but invited into God’s great work of making all things whole.
So let’s keep doing the work Isaiah imagines for us—not swinging for the fences, but building a world where peace grows, justice is tended, and compassion holds us all together.
“They will hammer their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
and they shall learn war no more.” (Isaiah 2:4)
- Greg Yantzi is pastor at Nith Valley Mennonite Church