We were whooping and hollering for our favorite college football team, the Oklahoma Sooners. Our family was together for the weekend. Only one of our six grandchildren, eleven-year-old Eli, was old enough to enjoy the game with the adults.
We had complained throughout the game about our team’s poor offensive performance. It was the fourth quarter, and we had lost all hope for a win. Shaking our heads, we each predicted the final score for our defeat.
Then Eli looked up at us—innocent as Christopher Robin in a crowd of Eeyores—and said something that set us back on our fault-finding heels: “Well, the game’s not over yet.”
What a novel idea. The game wasn’t over, although we had concluded otherwise. I laughed and thanked Eli for reminding us, tousling the top of his head, “That’s right, Eli, the game’s not over.”
But I thought, “Naïve kid, he just doesn’t know.”
Doesn’t he know what? All the negative, unexplainable setbacks we inevitably face in life? The circumstances that topple our joy like so many collapsing Lego blocks? All the times we hope someone will show up only to be disappointed? All the times we shoot for the stars only to fall short?
Too many adults have learned that it’s better to expect disappointment and not try than to try and risk experiencing the agony of defeat. “Nothing ventured, nothing lost.”
Suddenly, our team scored a touchdown. In short order, one of our players intercepted a pass, returning it for a touchdown, and we added a field goal. Our team made an astonishing comeback. “That’s ‘Sooner Magic,’ Eli,” I shouted as we all high-fived each other, dancing around the living room.
Then I asked everyone to pause as I hugged Eli, drawing everyone’s attention to him as I thanked him before our little football audience for reminding us that a game’s not over till it’s over.
I was quoting Yogi Berra, the legendary baseball great, when I said it’s not over till it’s over. Berra had a knack for quips known as “yogisms.” He made this one while managing the New York Mets in 1973. In July of that year, they were last in their division. When a reporter asked Berra if the season was over for his team, he responded by stating the obvious in his own inimical words, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” The Mets rallied to win the National League East, took the National League title, and made it to the World Series.
Eli must have been channeling Yogi when he said the game wasn’t over. I hope our grandson remembers what he said that day. I had drawn everyone’s attention to him because I wanted Eli to remember what he said. It’s a truth he will need to hold close to his heart as he faces life’s bumps and bruises, challenges and disappointments, setbacks and defeats, and the mounting chorus of naysayers determined to muffle any voice that dares sing, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.”
Persevering through life’s storms and getting back up when knocked down must be intentional actions. It’s easier to drift to the dark side of the world, wrap ourselves in excuses, and quit when all goes south rather than stay the course. If we are passive and not mentally alert, negativity spreads within us like a deadly virus. It can overwhelm us without our recognizing it.
That’s why I love Yogi Berra’s response to the reporter: We should never give up because “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
He was right.
Even if, in this lifetime, no one recognizes our faithfulness and determination, we can fight on, knowing as believers we play to an eternal audience, an everlasting host of witnesses, cheering us on, so that we can declare,
“It ain’t over till it’s over.”