My wife and I played mixed doubles in a local tennis tournament this past weekend. We had a great time and I learned a valuable lesson about not giving into error.

While playing in the finals for the consolation round, we won the first set 6-4. After beginning the second set, in short order we found ourselves down 1-5. This was embarrassing! We were making too many errors.

At 1-5, suggestion rages strongly that defeat is inevitable. Once your opponent hits 6, the match is finished.

I wasn’t concerned about beating the opposition, but I was concerned about making too many errors on our side of the net. This was a less than a representative example of our playing abilities.

I kicked my prayers into high gear and decided this was a time to demonstrate the presence of unerring Mind.

We live in a universe of Mind, and there are no errors in Mind! I insisted.

Rather than seeing my wife and myself playing another team, I saw one Mind sending and returning the ball. I steadfastly grabbed onto the pure metaphysical truth that the one Mind never makes mistakes. The one Mind never errs, but hits every shot correctly and places it well.

The suggestion then came, “What about Kathy (my wife)? What if she makes a mistake?” I rebuked the temptation to allow error a passage-way into our game by declaring that she expressed the same Mind I did. She could not make a mistake, and neither could I. We were not two mortals thinking and acting independently of each other. We were as one expressing the same unerring Mind. I didn’t need to worry about her. I needed to stay riveted to the spiritual truth about our oneness in Mind.

All of this reasoning happened very fast in thought, for there was no time to lose. The opposition was coming down hard and fast, and happy about it.

I could not waver in conviction, I knew. One little waver in faith would allow for error, and the game would be finished.

I remembered Mary Baker Eddy’s rule, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.” (Science and Health, p. 261) The word “steadfastly” was key. If I wished to demonstrate consistency, I had to be steadfast in my trust. There could be no wavering, no wishy-washy faith, no doubting.

I calmly, but resoundedly knew one Mind, and one Mind only!

The most amazing turn-around began.

My wife and I stopped making as many errors, and started to win our games. Soon we made it to 6-5. Right on the edge of victory, the opposition lobbed over my head and I reached to return the ball, but my faith wavered. Even though the ball was within my reach I pulled my racket back in doubt refusing to believe that I could get the ball back accurately, even though I could have. Suddenly, the score was 6-6. It was my first waver in thought, and the score tied. Lesson reinforced—you cannot waver!

We went into a 7 point tie-break, where first to 7 by 2 wins.

Then, the previous round of errors happened again. The score soon was 1-6, their favor. One more point and they were the winners of the set. I knew what the problem was. I was still despairing over my slip in faith from the previous set.

I set the failure out of my mind and affirmed the immediacy of Truth. There was no past haunting me, I agreed. There was only the nowness of Truth.

I snapped out of the mesmerism that wanted us to accept defeat and re-insisted that the unerring Mind was fully expressed through us.

Again, the most amazing reversal. We ceased making errors and came all the way back to 6-6, finally winning the tie-break 9-7.

The other side was in disbelief. We were too, a bit.

But it worked! Kathy and I could not see anything we changed in strategy or technique. We simply quit making so many errors, and the results spoke for themselves.

I’ve often been conflicted about prayer and sports competition, because my universal sense of Love precludes me from praying for one side against the other. That’s not the Love-way, I believe.

I had an insight this time that helped me view prayer and competition in sports in a freer vein.

In tennis tournaments, my motive never has been to beat my opponent. My goal has always been to be my best. If I learned and improved from the experience I considered myself a winner whether or not I had the higher score. And many times, I’ve had the lower score. But I’ve never felt like a loser.

While competing this weekend, I realized my rule for playing pertains to the other side too. If they were playing to beat me, then their motive needs to be purified and elevated, and that’s there task to figure out. But, spiritually reckoned, their motive should be the same as mine, to express the abilities and capacities of Mind to the best of their understanding. And if they learn and improve from the experience, they are always a winner, no matter what the score.

So, my job as a player, was to focus on fulfilling my responsibility on the court, which was to demonstrate the unerring capacities of Mind to the best of my understanding. That was all anyone expected me to do, and that’s what I needed to do. This motive also allows us to praise our competitor’s successes, even during the match. It is not a weakness on our part to acknowledge the talents and strengths of the other side, and openly say so. And it also is not commendable to perform poorly in the name of “loss doesn’t matter because the score doesn’t matter.” The score does not matter, but our attitude does. Success in sports is all about what is going on in our thinking. It’s a venue to improve and spiritualize thinking for those who are inclined to such activity.

I could go on and on…I learned so many lessons. But enough for now. There are more tournaments coming up to blog on further!

This experience of not giving into defeat when the odds are all against you will be a long lasting memory that inspires me for years. I look forward to my next time on court to take the lesson even further.

For those of you who like to play: Happy tennis!