On Mondays I gather with my closest friends and watch wrestling, something that a bunch of guys in their mid-twenties are probably too old to still do.

On Mondays the hopes of a new week are abloom. The problems of the week before have passed.

It’s Tuesdays that I hate.

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Every Tuesday during the fall I wake up to dire news. Each Tuesday morning I open up my computer and start my day depressed. That’s because on Tuesdays I find out my Fantasy Football fate.

This is my sixth year playing Fantasy Football. I get excited about playing every year, but that feeling usually fades by the end of the season. By week 3 I’m often staring down a winless season thanks to a few of my under-performing draftees.*

*(I actually won my league for the first time last season. But I lost the first game in both of the leagues I’m playing this year. A fantasy fluke or an omen of fumbles to come?)

You might know that same hopeless feeling I get every Tuesday, even if you don’t obsess over Tony Romo’s touchdown totals. Even the most successful of us get sacked sometimes.

We all face days when we wake up to defeat. How do you respond when you wake up to find that you’re the worst?

The disciples of Jesus must have known this feeling every day. Throughout the gospels we find accounts of the men closest to Jesus Christ completely missing the point of what he was trying to do in this world.

These disciples were in Jesus’s inner circle, his closest of companions, yet even they could not fully grasp the Son of God’s teachings. They doubted his abilities to feed thousands, to walk on water, to heal and to overcome death.

Every day they questioned Jesus’s every move and motivation, and every day Jesus found himself repeating his message of love and forgiveness to the men who should have known it by heart.

Jesus never gave up on his friends and followers. He constantly reminded them of God’s unconditional and undying love for them.

God never hands out report cards filled with red marks. God hands out lifelines through his son Jesus Christ.

Each day we arise and find that God has lifted us from the depths of our failures. But he does not simply place us back on top the quicksand of our defeats. Instead, each day God places us on a new path.

Each new morning in our lives is truly a new opportunity. Each second is a second chance to believe in God’s unwavering, unconditional love for us.

We must recognize that with God we have already won, no matter what any scoreboard says.

So when you wake up to defeat, let it be. Today is new. Today you are not a failure. You really weren’t one yesterday either, despite what you may think. You are always God’s beloved child.

And for goodness’ sake, don’t forget to go pick up a backup quarterback off the waiver wire. It looks like this Michael Vick kid might just be alright.

How did you do in Fantasy Football this weekend? What do you tell yourself when you face defeat? 

(This post is adapted from an article I originally wrote for The Augusta Chronicle)