Servants of Excellence

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

The other day I was tasked with keeping the scorebook for my son’s 8-Under baseball game, where the coaches pitch, the ball gets tossed all over the place and somehow, the umpires keep track of it all.

Keeping the scorebook is not difficult in this league. It’s a chore in “real” baseball, because scorers must track “official” hits, decide on errors, describe every out in detail (but with numbers only) and more stuff I can’t fully explain.

For instance, if a major league player hits the ball to the third baseman who bobbles the ball before making a throw and the runner reaches first, it’s scored E5 (Error on the 3^rd Baseman). In our league, if all ten (we need an extra) players in the field throw the ball over each other’s heads for 15 minutes and the runner—exhausted—finally reaches home, it’s a home run. Easy peasy.

My job as a scorer then, was simple. All I had to do was track who made outs, and whether a kid got around the bases for a run. That’s it. No errors, no fancy scoring. If at the end of the game my book matched the score book for the other team, all was good. No nuance in this league, believe me.

Sure, when errors are made, the kids are corrected. But we’re not tracking this stuff. We’re just happy they are out there. We’re happy they are playing.

Our game is about encouragement, hits and scoring. And even the word “hit” can have a different definition. Heck, when my kid hits the ball, we’re cheering whether he is safe at first or headed back to the dugout.

One night, the only time he connected with the ball it rolled a few feet into foul territory. He told me later, “I got one hit tonight!” Good enough for me. We’re flexible in 8U baseball.

Which tells me something about God. If we—being the somewhat decent parents we are—are such encouragers, what about God?

Sometimes we see Him as a taskmaster, recording our sins and constantly chiding us for our failings. It’s as if we see Him with a score book, noting nothing but errors and—to take Isaiah 64:6 out of context—seeing anything good we accomplish as nothing but “filthy rags” in His sight.

Yes, we make errors. And a good parent gently corrects a child who makes a mistake—either in the field or in life. But we don’t spend much time keeping track. We focus on the good, celebrating those times when our child hits the ball or performs an unselfish act.

Maybe God is more like a good parent than we realize. Perhaps He is cheering us on, even amongst our errors, urging us to “Go!” and change our world.

One kid on our team cries every time he doesn’t make it to first base. His head drops, he drags his bat back to the dugout and then collapses on the bench in agony. Each time this happens, a coach tries to cheer him up and get him “back in the game.” Almost always, it works.

What about us? Do we focus on our failings?

Perhaps God focuses more on our scoring than on any errors we make. When He closes the book on our day, it may be true that we bobbled the ball of life and threw it the wrong direction. He will correct this at the appropriate time. But I wonder if He turns to His Son at His right hand and says, “Wow, he sure hit the ball on that one play, didn’t he?”

And maybe, like an 8U baseball parent, He smiles.

by Kirk Walden, Advancement Specialist