HAVE YOU BEEN CANTABBED?

 

I was thinking this morning..... as I drove into the parking lot in front of the church auditorium last Sunday, I observed that our early bird pastor had not arrived. Having tried severally to beat him to early arrival, I was surprised that 15 mins before service he was not in church. When I called him to find out why he was running late and to gleefully announce that I had eventually beaten him to it, he laughed and said, you did not only beat me, you gave me 'cantab.'

Wow! It's been a lifetime since I heard the term 'cantab.' It was such a common word those days that I thought it was an English word. But when I asked Google, what I got was 'Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Kilon jebe? Cantab was a term we used while playing table tennis those days and it describes a situation when a player's score is double or more than double that of his opponent. A very good player will boast of cantabbing a weak player.

Our journey in life is somewhat like playing the game of table tennis. When we started, we all looked forward to being ahead of the curve, achieving our dreams and winning big. However, for many, mid way into life, it is not going as planned. If you dreamt of having a high paying job or a thriving business that makes you financially independent, but you are living from hand to mouth, you have been cantabbed by life.

Yes, many expected to have a lovely, peaceful family life, but ended up with the opposite. The spouse is a headache and having children, a prayer point. Some dreamt of studying and obtaining a PHD but life came hard at them very early and they ended without a degree. In summary, you can say life had cantabbed them.

The thing about being cantabbed is that it gives the person being beaten a sense of hopelessness even before the game comes to an end. Being cantabbed is a humiliation and usually no one comes back from a cantabbed situation to win a game. However, in 2005 during the World Championship in Shanghai, Danish Table tennis player Michael Maze came back from an impossible 'triple cantab' situation to beat Chinese player Hao Shuai.

So can you ever recover and win the game of life? Yes, it is possible. Life may be cantabbing you for now, but keep hope alive because the game is yours to lose. Romans 4:18 'Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations.' You can turn the cantab around.

Stay hopeful. God's got your back.

Happy Sunday.

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey