The Way We Win Matters
This was originally posted in 2019
Success isn’t inherently a bad thing; what’s bad is how we go about it and what we think success is.
The movie Ender’s game wrestles with this very concept. The main character, Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin, has been all but forced to train his entire life (not excluding his childhood) by a morally-compromising government to become the supreme commander of Earth’s fleet. During his training he is deliberately isolated by Colonel Hyrum Graff. Every time he makes a friend, the Colonel has him moved. Every time he feels hope, it is taken away. At one point, Colonel Graff says that Ender should never feel like anyone will come to his rescue. He is put in the most unfair, underdog, and stacked-against circumstances. Colonel Graff even pits other trainee’s against him by painting Ender as arrogant and foolish. The weight of the pressure and hopelessness he faces is insurmountable. Even in the midst of such adversity, Ender succeeds every time. At the end of the movie, Ender discovers that the battle simulations he has been apart of are actually real. He has been directing the mass annihilation of the enemy alien race. Ender, in utter despair, likens the action to genocide. Colonel Graff, trying to help Ender get a grip on himself announces, “We won, that’s all that matters,” to which Ender counters (distraught and in tears), “The way we win matters!”
The statement is a time stopper…
It’s what makes Ender, the supreme victor in all things, a true winner. The way he wins matters. An outcome of victory is bittersweet unless the means is honorable.
When we believe or even act like winning is all that matters, we are embracing utilitarian ethics; that the end justifies the means. In other words, how we get there doesn’t matter, as long as we get there. The problem with this philosophy is that we step on a lot of people in the process. People can get hurt, and even killed, when we think winning, or achieving a desired outcome, is all that matters. Our character is the measure of true victory, not the outcome. Outcomes are gifts of grace we’re not entitled to. No one likes a cheater, and apologies after-the-fact without repentance mean nothing.
People may get what they want at all costs, but what they gain in the process far outweighs what they lose: their soul.
“ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” — Mark 8:36 (ESV)
Echoing the words from Ender, I want to say this to our nation’s leaders: The way we win matters. Victory isn’t in the title, the position, or the accomplishment, but rather it is in heart and character. So win, but win the right way. After all, only God really wins in the end.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
