Baseball story

 I wonder what it would be like to be a leader who did not have a limp...any scars.  Then I would wonder what planet they came from because they surely could not be from this one, could they?  I would figure that really if they did not have a limp it would not be because they were better than me, just maybe further along in the healing process...I can live with that.  

I love baseball and played it all the time when I was growing up.  I would watch lots of baseball games and one of the things I began to notice as I grew older was that superstar baseball players rarely if ever made good managers.  It seemed odd to me at first...I mean the best players ever, who really knew how to play the game, who made the game look so easy at times.  Not good managers.  In face if you look around the list of managers there are many of them that never made the big leagues or were just fill in players.  Many played years at the minor league level, just struggling along hoping that one day it would be his big day, but that day never came.  

But in all the hard knocks of the game they really learned all the little things that it takes to play the game.  They watched everything that was going on and would ask others lots of questions...they wanted to learn.  

Star players never can relate to the guy who struggles to hit the ball or to field the ball.  Who cannot make the big throw to home plate from the outfield.  Why can’t you just pound the ball over the fence?  It is not that hard.  Why can’t you make that play?  Everyone should be able to make that play...the game is so easy...why do you make it look so hard? 

For me I find much hope and grace with my limp along life.  I am like the life long minor leaguer that had to do a little of everything just to stay on the team..to be a team player...a role player if you would.  Someone needs to work in the nursery...OK.  Someone to work with the youth...we will.  Someone to clean the building...all right then.  Someone to...well you get the idea.  I am not patting myself on the back, I am saying I learned to lead by serving.  I understand I am not the fastest, biggest, smartest, or the strongest.  I understand that in my weakness, He is made strong.  So like Paul, “ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”   It is not that I am glad to be weak but knowing that in my weakness, God comes in and brings strength. 

So like the life long minor leaguer who never made the big show, I am the regular guy that God says “OK, now put into practice all the things you learned behind the scenes.”  I think that is kind of cool...

Bill