You’re Still Eligible for the Hall The Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, NY is home to baseball’s elite and includes players from as far back as the late 1800’s. There are 166 “non-pitcher” members in the Hall of Fame and unless they had a very special, notable skill, they are there for their batting expertise. The Hall of Fame member with the highest lifetime batting average is Ty Cobb, who hit .366, an extremely high average. But how does that break down? For every 82 times Ty Cobb came to the plate, 30 times he hit the ball and got on base without the opposing team committing an error. What else does it mean? Cobb’s lofty batting average meant that the great Ty Cobb ‘failed’ to hit safely 52 times out of every 82 attempts! In all fairness, Ty Cobb and his .366 average is not the norm. A .300 lifetime batting average is the benchmark for players who aspire for the Hall of Fame. That’s right, you can strike out, ground out, hit a weak pop up to an infielder 7 times out of every 10 batting attempts, but hit cleanly in the other 3 attempts and be considered an elite hitter, destined for the Hall of Fame. If this small baseball lesson teaches anything, it teaches that people are not failures because they fail, a lesson divinely emphasized in the Bible. The scripture is full of great men and women who were sometimes as well known for their failures as for their mighty deeds. But even with the Biblical record, multitudes of Christians still struggle with guilt and depression, feeling their sometimes poor performance disqualifies them from any future achievement in God’s kingdom. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am more convinced today, after 41 years of studying God’s word and His people, that the single greatest hindrance to successful Christian living is the guilt and condemnation placed on Christians by satan. That feeling of unworthiness flies in the face of God’s design, a plan that saw Jesus die to bring man into God’s household, making him fellow citizens, not lowly citizens, with all the other saints. Brothers and Sisters, we have all failed, just like all baseball players eventually fall into slumps. When a player’s batting average drops they will entertain a wide variety of ways to break out of the slump. But all players share one common characteristic - they keep swinging. They will spend extra time in the batting cage and come in on their day off for extra hitting, but they know they will have to hit their way out of a slump – it’s what they do – hit. So you struck out…yesterday, or maybe even last night. Friend, when you awoke this morning, because of God’s faithfulness, His mercies and compassions were brand new. There is nothing wrong with getting knocked down, but there is something wrong with wallowing in the mud and crying about it. Stand up, wipe yourself off, grab your bat and get back in the batter’s box. (Lamentations 3:22-23; Romans 8:1; Ephesians 2:19; I Peter 2:9)
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:15:06 +0000
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