Victory surrounds us. We see it everywhere - sometimes it's our own victory, and we own it. Other times, someone else wins. History is recorded by the victors, we are told. And we see that in everything from war, to business, to family, to Christendom.

It's what we strive for, isn't it? Life can be a battle - everyone is excited to share what helped them win that battle. The voice of victory grows loud with those who have those winning experiences. Especially in the west, we've developed a winning-focused mentality: if it wins, it must be right. The proof is in the pudding - if a given lifestyle or belief is right, it will be proven by its very survival.

Not to say that we never celebrate failure in the west. Not at all - if I ask who you would like to see fail, you wouldn't need long to come up with that list. It's very telling that we treat failure inside our camp quite differently from when it happens to others.

But here's the thing: life can be long. We can have a certain schedule, or a set of coping mechanisms, or some relational techniques that help give us "victory" for a season. But days turn to weeks, weeks to years... And what helped us some years ago might not work for us anymore.

That's hard if we are the ones who were loudly voicing our victory. All of a sudden, everything about that victory can be called into question - it didn't last, so was it real? And if the priority is to stay on the winning side, to retain that state of victory, our soul foundation shifts a bit.

It's natural to experience some disorientation at that point. Sometimes, the circumstances around us have changed. Something happened to us, or was done to us. Or, something shifted in our own psyche - that happens as we grow and as we grow older. When that shift happens, it can be like the tectonic plates making up the surface of the earth - there's friction as immovable masses indeed move. Earthquake.

And then we react in one of a few ways. I think we can reflect on problems we've seen in others' lives over the years, and we can likely see each one of these as it played out in someone's life. First, we can tend to go to radio silence. We may have been one of the loudest voices when we had victory - because that was worth listening to, wasn't it? That's what our culture and community valued: tell us how you had victory, so I can have it to. So as long as your victory stood, you had a voice.

You beat that addiction, and could share that experience. You found a way to financial stability. You achieved a high level in your job. You successfully ran a business. Your kids grew up to become useful members of society. All of that victory, and we hear it everywhere. Spiritual victories - the same thing. New insights, souls saved, numbers in the seats - all proclaimed loudly.

But flip the script, and we get that radio silence. You don't get to talk about addiction, because you didn't beat it. You don't get to talk about parenting, because you failed. You don't get to talk about following God, because apparently you aren't doing it right. Shame.

In other words, if I can't get through a day with the set of coping mechanisms I have, I don't deserve to be listened to. But hear this: that's the same "victory deserves a voice" mindset we started with.

Second, we can react to failure by outright lying. Either by making up victories to fill the gap - fake it 'til you make it. Or, we can decide that whatever winning and losing meant, we can just redefine them now to get us back into the winner's circle. Sales staff and advertisers must always spin the narrative. Buy that JD Power award and put it to work selling those cars. I probably don't even need to mention politics here.

The third way we can react is a little more problematic: in the absence of large, life-altering victories, we can start blowing up the tiny ones in importance. When all we have around us that we consider valuable are mole-hills, we can find ourselves wanting to make mountains of them all.

Why is that a problem, you ask? Well... it increases the noise - if we pay that much attention to our tiny things going on and shoot them up into orbit, then we have to do the same for everyone else around us. Take a look at social media, and you'll see that happening. And, from a perspective of boundaries, we have then opened more vulnerability in our stance toward our community and culture.

So which of those reactions is the right one. I'd say none of them are. There is certainly a place for silence - that can be prudent at times. But instead of chasing after any semblance of victory each day of our lives, even if it is a mirage or illusion - let's consider giving some voice to our failures. The poor in spirit are blessed.

And, let's look to putting a fair, compassionate, empathetic highlight on others' failures. Not pointing them out to show how great we are, but treating them in the way that we would want to be treated if we were in their shoes. Knowing that failure didn't come out of a vacuum, or often from a single choice. Knowing that victory is not always happy, it often has a dark side as well.

Knowing that the true victory is always Christ's, and not our own.

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• Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash