I love baseball. I am a St. Louis native and life long Cardinals fan. Back in August I gave up on the Cardinals. They were too far behind the Brewers for the Central Division Championship and not much more behind in the wild card. I threw my support behind the Detroit Tigers. (read about that here) They caught fire at the end of the month and throughout September. Of course ESPN will tell you its all because the Atlanta Braves folded etc. They somehow came back from a .1% chance of making the playoff to being the wildcard. Even throughout the month the “experts” kept saying they had “no chance” of getting the wild card.
Being the wildcard, they had to play the “best team in baseball”, the Philadelphia Phillies, during their first series. They were given “no chance” of beating the Phillies. They won anyhow. That means they had to go on to face their division rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers. They were given “no chance” of winning that series. They are now in the world Series versus the Texas Rangers and once again they are given “no chance”.
I think sometimes in ministry we give things “no chance”. Here’s some of the voices we listen to when it comes to the impossible, improbable, or hard.
- Experts
Make sure you are listening to experts who have actually done something and not just wrote a book. - The Past
Our past failures and even successes can mold our opinions in the wrong way. It doesn’t matter how many series you’v3e won or lost in the past, live in the right now. - Fear
We fear failure, rejection, and the unknown but God has not given us a spirit of fear. A baseball team doesn’t allow fear to keep them off the field and we can’t either. - Inadequacies
I used to worry about how lacking I was in certain areas and allow that to keep me from doing things. I changed that by realizing that if I could do it without God’s help I should have already done it alone. The team with the best record or the team that looks best on paper (cough the Yankees) doesn’t always win it all. - Laziness
Sometimes we don’t do things because we know how much work they will take. A player will get cut if all they want to do is play in the game and never practice. - Wrong Attitudes
Nobody would cheer for a team if the manager came out and said “we are going to lose 120 games this year.” No one will follow you if you constantly have a bad attitude. - Wrong Thinking
Sometimes what we lack is right between our ears. If what we think about something is wrong, it will affect our words and our actions. IF a team thinks a player will perform at a certain level and they don’t, they will have trouble and find themselves off the team.
By the way, GO CARDS!