Want To Be On ESPN?

Dear Son,

I’ve heard people say that life is a game and sometimes it seems like they’re right.  Sometimes it seems like they’re winning and you’re losing and nothing can turn the momentum for anything.  You practice and work and train and you just can’t seem to change the outcome.  The score still says you’re beat.

I don’t think life is a game.  Seems to me that word puts too trivial a meaning on a journey that could never be summed up in a highlight reel.

Still, you’re a ten-year-old boy.  You’ve had some sort of ball in your hand just about every day for a decade now.  You’ve watched endless hours of sports on television with your dad.  You’ve played baseball, lacrosse, and basketball on local park teams.  You’ve played soccer, tennis, football, and golf in the backyard.  You know what it’s like to win a game, and to lose one.  And so, I’m hoping this will mean something to you, my son, because that’s what I’m trying to do, after all.  I’m trying to make sure something . . . the right thing . . . means something to you.

Indulge me for just a moment, and let’s imagine that life is a game, and you’re playing it.  How will you make sure the outcome of the game is the one you want it to be?

Let’s start with the uniform.  Is it important?  Ask any boy who remembers the first time he put on a little league shirt with the name of his team sprawled boldly across the front – the pants with the coordinating pin stripe down the side, the matching socks, belt and hat.  Ask him what it feels like to stand in front of a mirror and know you belong. 

Yes.  The uniform is important.  It lets the crowd know what team you’ve pledged your membership to – for whom you have chosen to play.  It announces to anyone watching that you have aligned your goals with the will of a greater group.  Put on a uniform and you become united with others – your hearts and minds joined for a common purpose. 

What about the coach?  Does the coach have much of an impact on the outcome of a game when he’s not an active participant in the game?  He is responsible for choosing the players on his team, after all, or at least accepting those who willingly join it.  He evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, placing them as often as possible in positions that capitalize on their greatest gifts.  He teaches new skills and improves old ones, ridding players of bad habits detrimental to the collective cause.  He encourages patience, hard work, determination, good sportsmanship, loyalty.  He develops strategies, plans, and plays he believes will ensure victory, despite the fact that winning is never a guarantee.  

Yes.  The coach matters.  The coach is the leader of his team, and a leader always has influence.

How about the playbook - where does it fit in?  It certainly holds important information.  Much thought goes into its creation, and it is highly regarded as a tool for success.  The playbook is the culmination of hours, days, and weeks of principle, practice, preparation, and the plotting of ideas.  It is a design, a tactical map intended to lead a team to ultimate triumph.  Lose your playbook and you’ve lost a critical component for making decisions. 

Yes.  The playbook is a key piece of the puzzle.  It is a guide that encourages the best paths to take.

So maybe life is a lot like a game.  We are often on the quest for a goal, aren’t we?  We are always angling for position, striving for status, trying to reach the finish line.  We are always shooting for something. 

Son, one day you will have the opportunity to play this game of life on your own, without parents standing guard to steer your every decision.  You can play it any way you want – it is your game, YOUR life – and I can assure you there will be choices too numerous to name.  There are uniforms of every color and style.  There are thousands of teams with thousands of goals.  There are coaches galore and playbooks with proposals of all kinds.   You can pick any of them at any time, and every choice you make will have its own set of consequences.

My prayer, sweet Charlie, is that when it comes time for you to pick your uniform, you choose the only one that offers complete protection, because you will need it.  There is simply no way around the fact that you will be sacked in this game of life.  You will be pushed back and pushed down and pushed around.  You will fall and fail and flail, and You. Will. Be. Defeated.  Life is never a steady stream of successes.  Life is a journey filled with smiles and strikeouts, homeruns and hopelessness, goals and grief, touchdowns and tragedy.  Yes, there will be accomplishments.  Sometimes, you will win.  But there will also be setbacks and suffering and soul-splitting experiences that will make you feel as though you haven’t just lost the game . . . you’ve lost everything.

There is only one uniform that will protect you from the realities of life and its games, and that is the full armor of God.  Oh what a beautiful uniform it is – the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit.  You would look magnificent in that uniform, my son.  And when you wear it, IF you choose to wear it, everyone will know whose team you’re on.  Everyone will know you have chosen Jesus as your coach and the Bible as your playbook and the joy of victory FOREVER. 

You see, you will never lose the game when you choose the right uniform and the right team and the right coach and the right playbook.  You will always win . . . because God always wins.  

If you choose to spend your life playing for God, my son, your life will always be worthy of a highlight reel.  And your prize . . . your prize will be so much better than a medal or a trophy or a title. 

Your prize will be eternity. 

Bella Amare

Have you ever read Romans?  It’s . . .WOW.   I’m not even half way through it, but . . . just . . . WOW.

Romans is a letter to, yep, you got it, the Romans.  It was written by Paul, and can I just say . . . that dude means business.  You want a speaker at your next meeting who is sure to get everyone’s attention?  Paul’s your guy.  You want someone explaining things to potential clients?  Paul’s the fella for the job.  You want a person who can straighten out your employees?  Go with Paul.  Never underestimate a man who spent much of his life on the dark side, only to become a major player in the greatest story of all time.  Man can tell it like it is.

The first few chapters of Romans are a bit of a wake-up call.  Actually, ‘wake-up call’ is far too trivial a comparison.  This isn’t a Bose radio playing your current favorite Christian song as the sun rises, the notes slowly increasing in volume with each minute you choose to cozy deeper under the covers.  It’s more like Paul shows up beside your bed at three am, when you’re still deliriously asleep, and just as you float into a glorious dream about winning a $50,000 kitchen renovation from HGTV that will be completed by Ryan Gosling, Paul begins slapping you in the face.  Over and over he swings, stopping just long enough to let you take a breath and try to shield yourself with your hands, but you’re too slow, and WHACK, he hits you again.  Hard.  It stings, pulsing with heat that seems to come from deep under your skin, burning in a way that lets you know the pain won’t end anytime soon.  Your brain throbs with the knowledge that you can’t fight back, and your heart breaks as you realize you lost this battle before it even began.  You’re fully awake now.  You can never enter that state of idyllic dreaminess again.

YOU. ARE. A. SINNER.  

Paul makes no bones about the truth.  He is clear about the spiritual state of humans, and it is ugly my friends.  Very ugly. 

‘Godless and wicked’ are two terms Paul uses to describe mankind in the first chapter of Romans.  He also uses words like futile, foolish, shameful, insolent, arrogant, boastful, and evil. 

Feeling the sting right about now? 

I’m afraid it gets worse. 

Paul says human beings are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.  He claims we are gossipers and slanderers who suppress the truth and have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Need a tissue . . . or perhaps an entire box of them?

The thing is - I don’t think Paul is trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. His goal is not to simply ignite emotion in his audience.  Paul just wants to be sure we completely understand the depth of our sinful nature, and he wants us to realize he is speaking about everyone.  We are all on the same playing field.  We are all on level ground.  There is no need to compare ourselves to anyone else – we are all counted guilty.  You can thank Adam for that.  Just as we inherit traits from our ancestors, we inherited Adam’s sin nature.  We are fallen to our very DNA, people.  Every single one of us has witnessed the irrefutable evidence of God’s existence and goodness, and we have all chosen to deny it when we live our lives in ways that do not glorify Him. 

“For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”  Romans 1:20

We are without excuse.

Paul goes on to speak of God’s wrath, and after what we’ve just heard, we know without a doubt it is justified.  We deserve it.  But here’s where Romans starts to get interesting.  At first, the idea of God being intensely angry - having wrath, if you will - makes me squirm a little bit.  My God?  Furious?  At me?  Nah, that doesn’t sound like MY God.  My God is a peaceful God.  My God is healer and comforter and redeemer.  My God doesn’t get mad at me . . . right?

Wrong.

The truth is, God’s wrath is nothing like human wrath.  God’s wrath is neither irrational nor vindictive, because God’s wrath comes from his holiness.  Because God is holy, he must have hostility towards sin, and we must understand this fact if we want to be in a relationship with him, because it is such an important part of who he is. 

There’s more.  And this is where Romans isn’t just interesting.  It’s good.

You see, Paul refuses to let us remain in the sin of Adam’s mistakes . . . in the sin we are born with and which follows us all the days of our lives.  After he’s beat us down with the truth of who we are as human beings, of why we are sinners to the core, and how we are wholly responsible for the wrath of God . . . Paul tells the rest of the story . . .   

The gospel is the power of salvation for all who believe.  Romans 1:16

The gospel is the power of salvation for ALL WHO BELIEVE!     

This is the message of Romans.  This is Paul’s message of victory. He has knocked us to the ground and it hurts all over – we are bruised and battered and burning with the knowledge that we are sinners and God hates sin.  But we don’t have to stay there, defeated and damned.  Yes, we are sinners.  Yes, we totally suck sometimes. 

But there is good news! 

We don’t have to give up because God didn’t give up on us. Instead, he sent his one and only son to die on a cross so we could be his forever.  Christ’s power and grace are greater than our sin . . . greater than ALL sin. 

We can’t claim to be a follower of Jesus and only speak of God’s love and grace – that will never be the complete picture of who he truly is.  To comprehend God’s unbelievable love for us, we must first comprehend how much he despises our sin.  The perfect fullness of God only makes sense when we see both sides of the picture.  God fully hates our sin, yet fully loves us. 

Now I need a tissue. 

God fully hates my sin, yet fully loves me. 

Like I said . . . WOW.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be writing about Paul, and Romans, again.   Every chapter I read gets under my skin and remains there, taunting me with new information and more conviction and the hint of an idea that what is coming next might not just challenge me, but instead . . . change me?

Stay tuned, and in the meantime, I hope you’ll remember something . . .

God hates every bit of your sin, because he has to.

God loves every bit of you, because he chose to.

The world of youth sports provides an interesting glimpse into American mentality. If there was ever a place to witness the egomania that has become such a widely recognized characteristic of our nation, it is in the stands of a little league baseball game. I know. I've spent countless hours there.

My husband and I signed our son up for his first season of baseball when he was five years old. We thought it would be a great learning experience for him. We hoped he would begin to gain some fundamental sports skills, of course, but mostly we just wanted him to be part of a team and have some fun. Baseball is a game, after all. Turns out we were late in introducing team sports to our first born. At age five, he was already behind. I guess it's more acceptable for kids to begin team sports at age three in suburban Atlanta. You know, while they still trip over their own feet walking on flat, unobstructed surfaces and have attention spans lasting approximately two and a half minutes.

Admittedly, it's adorable to watch three-year-olds on a soccer field. Their shin guards are big enough to protect their thighs and they run in circles chasing one another while the ball rolls in the opposite direction. They're just as cute playing baseball. They dig in the dirt while playing center field and sit down on the bases to rest in the middle of an inning. Let's face it, toddlers doing anything in uniforms are cause for extreme amounts of sideline photography - I get the excitement in that.

I don't think we're doing our children a desservice by encouraging them to play sports at young ages. It's good for kids to try new things, work on their gross motor skills, improve their hand-eye coordination. Sports were a huge part of my life as I grew up and I believe they instilled in me all kinds of important values including confidence, patience, determination, and a positive attitude, just to name a few. I do, however, find it disturbing to see that youth sports no longer seem to be viewed as activities designed to promote physical activity and build values. Youth sports in America today are serious business.

Today, children in elementary school take costly private lessons in the sport of their choice. Today, it's not sufficient for a child to play in a youth league at their local park. Instead, they try out for travel teams and their parents drive them all over town to play in games that prove they are better than the kids playing at their local parks. Today, parents pull their kids out of school and travel across the country for higher levels of competition. Today, men coaching eight year olds get into yelling matches over a score. Today, it seems many parents aren't interested in encouraging their children to gain beneficial values through youth sports. They are more concerned with encouraging their children's success.

I like to tell people that our son Charlie is "dabbling" when they ask me what sport he likes best. He's taken tennis lessons. He hits golf balls on the range with his daddy. He went to soccer camp one summer, lacrosse and flag football camp the next. He plays baseball in the spring and basketball in the winter.

Sadly, it seems our "dabbling" approach is unacceptable to many parents. Some believe my child should already have picked his specific sport - you know, the one he's going to do for the rest of his life and turn into a highly lucrative career that will allow my husband and me to retire early to an oasis on the beach somewhere.

Charlie started to do some pitching last fall. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of his life. No . . . not for him. For his parents. While our son was on the mound enjoying the opportunity to be involved in every play of an inning, Adam and I were on the bleachers pulling our hair out with anxiety.

Obviously, we wanted our son to be successful. We wanted him to perform well and contribute to his team. We were also slightly fearful. What if someone hits a line drive right back to Charlie's face? I witnessed that during a softball game in my own days of youth sports and I assure you it wasn't pretty. Yet, as my husband and I watched our child pitch, our overwhelming emotion wasn't fear or a desire for Charlie to pitch so well his team emerged victorious. Our concern centered on our child's overall well-being. The outcome of the game didn't matter. It never will. It's a game. The future didn't matter either. We have no aspirations for Charlie's future in sports. At eight years of age, our son is barely four feet tall and weighs only fifty pounds. We understand how difficult it is to become a world class athlete, especially with stats like those. Still, I will never forget the magnitude of emotions that shook my soul the first time I sat in the stands and watched my son go to work on a little league pitcher's mound. My need for him to do his best, not THE best but HIS best, was a desperate one. I longed for him to feel good about his effort and ability in a way I find difficult to explain.

Charlie was a fine little pitcher during the fall baseball season. He was even better in the spring. In fact, he was so much better that he was asked to try out for a summer all-star team. I was against it on account of the daily practices, the faraway tournaments, and the Atlanta humidity. My husband felt we had to give Charlie the choice. I relented, Charlie tried out, made the team, and our foray into the seriousness of youth sports in America officially began.

I could tell you about the undeniable increase in intensity I felt around me during my son's all-star games. I could tell you about the parents who cheered blatantly against opposing teams instead of simply cheering for their own teams. I could even tell you about the fist fight between fathers that likely would have occured had not a large umpire stepped in to stop it. I think the most important thing I can tell you, however, is that after a month of all-star baseball, I saw a shift in Charlie's mindset. When the spring season ended, our son had only positive feelings about baseball. He loved the game and believed he was good at it. After his all-star team lost EVERY game they played, Charlie no longer had such confidence in his baseball abilities. That's a true shame.

People offered all kinds of reasons for the winless record of Charlie's all-star team - reasons that involved parents lying about birth dates and ignoring rules about practice limits. Some of the kids on the other teams were twice the size of Charlie and one looked like he might have driven himself to the game, so hey, who knows . . . maybe there are parents out there who place such significance on little league baseball that they would rather win than demonstrate basic human decency. Honestly, I just think there are plenty of kids in the metro Atlanta area who have more athletic talent than my kid. And that's okay.

Charlie wanted to play baseball again this fall, so I suppose the all-star season didn't damage his attitude about youth sports in a permanent way. For me, the worst part of the experience wasn't that it opened my eyes to the importance many well-meaning parents have placed on youth sports today. The worst part was that it allowed the American mentality residing within me to rear its ugly head in recognizable fashion. It showed me that no matter how much emphasis I place on my child having fun and being a good teammate and demonstrating sportsmanship and doing his best, I can't help but want his best . . . to be good enough. How else do you explain the fact that while my child was on the pitcher's mound, I was silently praying for him to strike out the kid at the batter's box, even when, deep down, I knew the batter's mother was likely on the other side of the bleachers praying for her child to hit the ball out of the park. Clearly, the other mom must have been praying a whole lot louder.

Or maybe her son takes private hitting lessons three times a week.