Bitter or Thankful?

As a lifelong Duke football fan, I am well-acquainted with disappointment and failure in my college football fandom.

Growing up, my family would often buy Duke football season tickets. At the time, the program was so bad that Duke game tickets often cost less than tickets to watch my local high school football team.

I vividly recall sitting through numerous winless games, watching the various Blue Devil teams put up disheartening performances before a nearly empty Wallace Wade Stadium. 

For many years, it seemed the program would never be anything more than a laughingstock in college football. Failure, in many ways, seemed inevitable.

It is that exact lack of history and prestige within the program that made this year’s campaign so surprising. 

Led by a powerful offense, Duke made a surprising run to Charlotte, where the program would win its first outright ACC Championship of my lifetime.

Since that time, however, the headlines surrounding Duke’s football program have not been nearly as pleasant. 

First came the announcement that many of the team’s top underclassmen were forgoing the rest of their collegiate eligibility to enter the NFL Draft. 

The news of those early departures was followed by many of the team’s top players entering the transfer portal. Most notably, star quarterback Darian Mensah reversed course after initially stating he would return to Durham next year, ultimately electing to transfer to Miami. 

News of Mensah’s transfer prompted numerous other Duke players to enter the transfer portal, leaving the team with countless question marks on the roster heading into the 2026 campaign.

Earlier this week, I was sitting at home, filling my wife in on all the recent departures that had hit the program. In full transparency, I spent a decent amount of time whining and complaining about all of the hits the team had taken, and I was having quite the pity party, thinking about how the program might decline next season.

But in the midst of my sinful complaining, something incredible happened. Suddenly, I remembered that Duke has a year to be the ACC champions. Even in the midst of our current negative headlines, they are still the champions!

At one point, I actually said out loud, “You know what? I am not going to focus on the fact that we have lost so many players. We are the ACC champions! I waited nearly 40 years for this. I am going to celebrate!”

This is a longer introduction than usual, but I hope it offers a helpful parallel for our walk of faith.

Unfortunately, there seems to be something innate in all of us that makes it easy to gravitate toward complaining and discontentment instead of being thankful. 

But we must never forget that we always have a choice. No matter what is going on in our lives, we can always choose to be grateful and to have hearts filled with thankfulness. 

Psalm 107:1 (NLT) says, "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever.”

The command in that verse does not tell us to give thanks to God for what He has done (even though that would be appropriate), but to give thanks to God simply because He is good. We are to reflect on His faithful love for His people, and then respond with gratitude.

When things in our lives are not going the way we desire, we can choose either to focus on our circumstances and be filled with sinful discontent and bitterness or to focus on the goodness and faithfulness of God and be drawn towards thanksgiving and praise.

No matter how bad things might seem at a given time, we must be intentional about focusing on the fact that, in Christ, we are champions! Because of His perfect life and sacrificial death on the cross, we are given eternal victory over sin and death.

1 Corinthians 15:56-57 (ESV) states, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Yes, your life might be challenging right now. You may have just lost a job. Maybe you are dealing with financial pressures or relational strains. Perhaps the doctor recently gave you a medical report you didn't want to hear.

But I just want to remind you that, in whatever you are facing right now, if you are in Christ, you have the ultimate victory. 

That doesn’t mean we make light of life's problems or pretend suffering doesn't exist. Rather, it means we can choose to be thankful amid our suffering. 

Today, let’s choose to stop focusing on the negative things happening around us. Instead, let’s choose to focus on God, His love, His faithfulness, His sovereign control over all things, and, most importantly, the fact that we are champions because of what Christ has done for us.

I’m Matt Osborne, and you can UNPACK that!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please forgive me for the times I have complained and lacked contentment in my life. Thank you for the victory I have in Christ. Please help me to dwell on what You've done for me, so that my life may overflow with thanksgiving and praise. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.