Play Ball!

Today, February 25, 2009 is a great day! Today, the past becomes completely irrelevant. Today, everyone gets a chance to start over. Today, marks the official beginning of the 2009 Major League Baseball Season! Yes, it's true that Spring Training started two weeks ago, but it's never really official until two teams square off in Florida or Arizona in late February. Spring Training is its own animal - third color jerseys, guys wearing numbers north of 50 on their backs, rookies taking the field with or against the guys that they idolized growing up, catchers lined up 12 abreast catching bullpens, and hundreds of fans coming out to see the game. It brings a feeling of a fresh, new beginning each spring that you won't find in any other sport. Players are gearing up for a grueling marathon that will consume their minds for the next 6 months, and only those that are determined, committed and even lucky enough, will be playing in October for eternal glory.

It's baseball. Our national pastime. The only game in the world where the ability to endure failure and rise above it is truly a daily occurrence. This season will no doubt be remembered for it's own version of drama - walk off homers, maybe a no-hitter or two, perhaps we'll see the last 300 game winner ever?

It will also be remembered for another thing. America is at a crucial turning point in its history. Unemployment is the highest it's been in a long time, people are going to jail for tax fraud, insider trading, cheating the government, and banks are disappearing over night. What was once the leading, free market economy in the world is now a hollow shell that makes the "good old days" seem light years away. Baseball represents a return to simplicity. A return to what is...normal; an example of what has carried us through the tough times in the past, and it can do it again!

As Americans usher in a new beginning in this baseball season, I can't help but feel we'll also usher in a new sense of hope. Not because of our President, not because of a ridiculous stimulus package, but because of the grit, determination and pride that this great country was built on. We all come from a long line of brave, proud, old-school people that are responsible for weaving the tapestry of this country that has represented strength and the ability to achieve anything to the rest of the world.

We all have a decision to make, and I hope we all decide to roll up our sleeves and get tough. We need to remember who we are and that it's up to us to own our future. Be positive! Be confident! With all that said...PLAY BALL!

Great Quote

"Wonder is rooted in the deep reverance for the God who made all things."-- Ben Patterson

Recently I was listening to some old sermons from college and I came across this one-liner from Ben.

What a great thought to meditate on!

Making Sense Of All This

This week has been an interesting one! It's amazing when you look back on a week like this one and you realize all that you forgot, all that you wish you'd have done differently, and all that you did somehow manage to experience.

This week, I kept thinking back to C.S. Lewis' quote: "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Indeed, if I'd taken two extra minutes each day to put things in perspective this week, I would realize that we've been promised so much more than what we have. Let me elaborate...

The newest source of joy in my life is my 3 month-old son Brady. When I hold him, look into his eyes, talk to him and hear him talk back to me in "goos" and "gaas" I am overcome with gratitude, love and amazement over this beautiful little life that God has blessed me with. When I see Brady and play with him or just hold him and watch him sleep, it makes all my worries, all my frustrations and all my issues just melt away. If you're not a parent, you've never experienced anything like this feeling, I promise. However, God has put on my heart the thought of these "unblushing promises" that Lewis references this week and I must say it has really wrapped me around the axle. Even something so sacred and close to the fiber of my being as holding my baby boy just pales in comparison to what our Father has in store for us! The human mind cannot comprehend the depth of that kind of love!

What we can do is rest in it and declare it to our hearts. We are so loved by the Father, that not even the love of our own children is comparable. The Father chose us, He blessed us, and He has made these promises to us!

Friends if you read this, please don't make the same mistake that I have. Take a moment, reflect on what gives you pure joy, and then remember that so much more is offered us! It'll rock your world.