Batter Up!

I’m not much of a baseball fan so I’m not all that familiar with the difference between a slider, a curve ball or a change-up. I do know they are all designed to do one thing…throw the batter off his or her game…get them out of their rhythm so they swing and miss.

Maybe the reason I'm not much of a fan has something to do with the fact that I've never been that good at playing the game...especially the batting part. You never know what's going to be thrown at you and I'm not good at adjusting to the unexpected. I’m a person who likes things to go pretty much straight down the line...accross the center of the plate... nice and predictable...no surprises.

As a Christian, it can be a challenge to be someone who doesn't deal well with surprise. God allows the unexpected to be thrown our way at times. A slow fade here, a curve ball there. Just when we think we've got the game under control, we know what to expect, a pitch comes along that completely throws us out of our rhythm and sends us swinging at air.

When this has happened to me I've typically experienced one or more emotions: Confusion – Why is God allowing this? It doesn’t make sense that things would happen this way? Frustration: Doesn’t God know how important this is to me? Why isn’t He blessing my effort here?! Discouragement – Why should I even try to do anything for God when it all just seems to be for nothing anyway? In a nutshell, "God, why are you trying to strike me out?"

You know, you don't read many inspiring stories in scripture of people who did it "their way". Rather, the most amazing stories are about people who seemed to have little or no idea when they started where they were going and what the end result might be. Abraham gave up the comfort of Ur to pitch his tent in the wilderness wherever God would lead. Moses, with Israel in tow, trudged into the desert following a pillar of fire. I doubt they spent a great deal of time trying to direct where they thought it should be leading them. The apostle Paul travelled the Mediterranean, enduring shipwreck, imprisonment, and beatings to preach the gospel wherever the Spirit led him. I somehow don’t think spending the last days of his life locked away in a prison in Rome made Paul's top ten list of lifetime goals.

These, and many others like them, did seem to have one thing in common; the ability, as well as the humility, to adapt themselves to whatever life threw their way and to change course to wherever God, through His Spirit, was leading them. If the Spirit was leading them to go into the desert, they pulled up their tent stakes and went. If it was leading them to go to Antioch, or to Rome to preach, they got into the ship and set sail.

The truth is, even if they couldn't see it fully, they were following a plan. It just wasn't their own. It's the plan of salvation. Looking over the span of time since creation, we are able see their role in that plan, even if they didn't fully. It's a plan that is at work in our lives as well. And it's one plan we can be confident won't throw us a curve.

Do I still make my own plans? Do I still have my own goals? Sure. But I’m learning to hold them a little more loosely and be ready to adapt and change them when God unexpectedly takes them in another direction. I've learned God isn't trying to strike me out, only help me improve my batting average. Hey, maybe I'll learn to like the game after all. Batter up!