Another stupid error.
This was becoming one of the worst practices in history. I was sure to lose my starting position after all of these stupid errors. It was like the worst of Bill Buckner and Chuck Knoblauch had invaded my playing skills. I couldn’t throw to first base. I couldn’t catch a simple ground ball.
And so I did what every unsanctified high school boy does when he’s having a practice like that; I cursed and screamed out expletives while kicking the dirt. I was playing the game that I loved and I hated it.
Baseball had become my god and it was kicking my tail.
It started out as fun. A little boy sliding into bases; enjoying that feeling of getting all dirty and working hard. Diving after balls and making plays; hearing the crowd (all 12 of them) cheer. Running around the bases as fast as my little legs could carry me. Baseball was fun.
Then I got serious.
Many of the things around me seemed to be collapsing. But this was one thing that wasn’t. I was getting better and better at baseball and I was going to make something of myself. It would be hear that I would find life and meaning. Here I would become somebody. That’s why I cursed so violently on that day. Dreams were meeting reality.
Life and meaning cannot be found here.
The Cursing Boy is Changed
A few years after this dirt-kicking profanity-laced tirade something happened. Actually, it would be better to say Somebody happened. Jesus Christ captivated my heart. At the same time my baseball dreams were slowly coming to naught. I was 18 and could only muster playing softball in a YMCA league. That’s not quite the fast track to Major League Baseball.
As my chances to find life and meaning in baseball dwindled I started losing passion for the game. I was slowly discovering what Solomon did all those years ago; everything under the sun is “meaningless, meaningless, meaningless.” Baseball had such a stranglehold on my heart that I had to, for the most part, take a year or two off from the game.
During that year off Jesus had been working over all my idols. He was slowly grounding my identity in himself and causing many idols to topple.
After a brief hiatus I started playing baseball again. But this time it was different. I was only playing slow-pitch softball in a YMCA church league but I loved the game more than I ever did. No longer did I curse when I messed up. No longer did I feel like I had to have one of those “hard” faces even whenever I did something good. I could simply enjoy the game.
Ecclesiastes tells me why
And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. Ecclesiastes 8:15
You can read that statement two different ways.
You can read it as a depressed man at the end of his rope. In this case it’s as if he is saying, “Ah, forget the whole thing. There’s no point in anything anyways I’m just going to eat some ice cream, get drunk, and try to find a little happiness wherever it may be found.”
Or you can read it as a man that is now able to look through the shiny allure of all things under the sun and see them for what they really are. Solomon has found that the “end of the matter” is to “Fear God and keep his commandments”. In other words ultimate meaning isn’t to be found “under the sun”. Realizing this transforms life under the sun.
When I tried to find life and meaning in baseball it left me empty. Baseball—like sex, money, leisure, career—are meaningless gods. I cannot enjoy baseball when it is a functional savior. It was no longer enjoyable because I had strapped a weight on it that it cannot bear; namely, satisfying my soul.
As Yahweh captivated my heart baseball changed its meaning. It was no longer a god that I bowed down to. It was now a gift that I could enjoy. I could see it for what it really was a gift to be enjoyed under the sun. And I really did enjoy it. Finally, I enjoyed the game instead of worshipped it.
Solomon cries out to those of us that are searching for life and meaning, saying, “It isn’t found here under the sun”. Look elsewhere. And when you do, and you find life and meaning where it is truly to be found—in God Himself—something strange happens…
You start enjoying things under the sun.
The only sport that truly matters has started.
This mightily reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s law of ‘First and Second Things'(see the C. S. Lewis collection ‘God in the Dock’, or search for “First and Second Things” on Google): “every preference of a small good to great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made”. Or, the short version: “You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.” Idols are typically a secondary thing put first.
Did you see this one on baseball at Baptist Press: http://bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=39791
I thought this was a good thought about the Great Game as well.
And yes, let us enjoy the good things that God has given us.
Thanks for that article. I only had time to really skim it…but what I caught was really good. I’ve bookmarked it to be read again. Thanks.
I had to go looking for it when I read your post–I had skimmed it and linked it back when it came out, but wanted to get back to it.
Sports can help us learn so much if used properly.
The way baseball is going, meaningless is an apt term
Not that I’m a statistically obsessed Baptist or anything, but this is the 100,000th approved comment in site history.
Just a thought–Maybe if you’d tried basketball you wouldn’t have been such a stinker. Basketball is God’s game. Basketball is a truly scriptural experience: “I will enter his courts with praise.” NCAA basketball is a gracious gift from God. And the fact that the SEC can’t play basketball is proof that God is not on the side of any SEC team. And I say that with no apologies whatsoever to SEC CB. Just a side note–My little Baptist college alma mater is playing for the D3 championship this weekend. I call on all fellow Baptists to pray for a win… Read more »
What is this basketball thing that you speak of?
Watch and learn, Grasshopper.
🙂
By the way, the University of Oregon not only has a GREAT football team, but they also play GREAT basketball. Something the SEC can’t seem to get figured out is how to have good programs in more than one sport.
Duckman Dale, Do you know how many different Sports in which BAMA won National Championships over the last two years? No? I thought not. However, I will concede that the SEC does do better than all other NCAA Division 1 Conferences in one specific Sport. Know what Sport that is? Yes, Duckman Dale, you are right. It is FOOTBALL. Do you know what that means? No? OK, I will tell you. It means that the SEC takes in so much money on FOOTBALL that we can give any athlete on the planet a scholarship in any Sport his or heart… Read more »
(Sitting her chuckling and shaking my head.)
You are one fine piece of work, SEC CB. I am glad to know you from afar.
Oh, by the way–Bama has won 6 national championships over the past two years. Can you name which ones?
Duckman Dale,
Is this just a trick to get me to say two years in a row we won a National Championship in Gymnastics? OK, I’ll say it, but remember it was in Women’s Gymnastics both times.
We also won in Women’s Softball, and Golf. And of course, two in FOOTBALL. . . . Men’s FOOTBALL.
BTW, I am glad to know you also. We’ll catch up to each other one of these days. I look forward to it. . . and don’t forget; ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!
Okay SEC CB. You caught my little ploy. That was, in fact, my intent. I was just wanting to see you put it out there in black and white. And I will also admit that I had to Google that information.
LOL, Duckman Dale.
We do not have to Google that information in the SABANATION. It is on every placemat in every B-B-Q joint in the state. . . right on top of the Houndstooth, Bear Bryant tablecloth.