“Quitting A Winning Team”
During the last millennium, I found myself between the veritable rock, and a hard place. My children had rapidly grown and arrived at the age of participation with their peers. Most every parent has experienced that day when one of their young ones comes home from school with a permission slip requiring their signature, so that their son or daughter could participate in sports, cheerleading, dance, drama or an activity that requires us parents to also become active and participate in your child’s current dreams of grandeur and high acclaim. It began for me with T-ball with the oldest and six children later, grade school basketball for the youngest. During those years I have had some of the most wonderful children bless me with their love, loyalty, trust and kindnesses.
During all of my years of involvement with young people, I have had only one young person that wanted to quit on me, and I had the good fortune to run into him and his wife several weeks ago at a local restaurant. Danny was one of the smartest kids I had ever known and one of the most loyal team members. At his best, a mediocre baseball player who had been on our winning team for two years without ever having a base hit. When I talked to Dan about his becoming a starter in his third year, he became visibly shaken. After two weeks of practice Dan stop coming for work outs. After several attempts to call him, I went to his home to speak with him, only to find him sullen and withdrawn. His parents said to me in no uncertain terms, that “If Danny doesn’t want to play baseball, he doesn’t have to.” With that pronouncement I thanked them for their time, and ask Dan to accompany me to my truck. Once outside, I opened the door and lifted his jersey from the seat and stretched it out before him and tears came to his eyes. He finally confessed that he was afraid to continue on the team because if he was moved up and he failed causing the team to lose it would be too much for him. With that confession I tried to reason with him, and lastly said to him, “you have to have some faith in yourself,” that if you just stay with the team, all things would work out well for him and all the others. Did I mention it was a winning team? He said nothing and strode back to the house and as I drove away I thought to myself, “Perhaps he was right. Perhaps baseball was too hard for him and my expectations too high.”
After leaving the restaurant I began to think back on the many times I wanted to quit a difficult task, an unpleasant job; how I wanted to escape responsibilities or not live up to my word I had given to someone just because… There are times when the struggle becomes too great, and the burdens too heavy, sometimes there is a challenge to your faith and fidelity.
In the book of John, the 6th chapter verses 47 through 69, (a good read for everyone) I come face to face with my truest challenge, is my faith, fidelity and resolve strong enough to sustain me even when I am not in position to see the end of my obligations, my charges and my destiny. It’s a long read so allow me to summarize. Jesus was in Capernaum with all of the disciples, not just the initial 12, but about 70 disciples in total. (See Luke 10) As usual there was a multitude of people following after him, but they were in addition to the multitude of disciples who now had joined his band. These 70 or so disciples had been with him during the following circumstances:
- In Samaria, when He prophesied to the woman at the well (John 3:7).
- They were with Him in Cana when a nobleman from Capernaum came to Him on behalf of his sick and dying son (John 3:46), and because of the Nobleman’s belief in Jesus, our Lord healed his son from that moment.
- There was clear evidence to that group of Disciples that they were on a winning team when at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus healed a man lame for 38 years (John 5:5).
- What could have been more convincing to these men than the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:6) with a few loaves of bread and two fish,
- Let alone His walking on the stormy Sea of Galilee (John 6:19).
How much empirical evidence is needed before we have sufficient faith in what or whom we profess to believe? When is the moment that we are persuaded and convinced beyond all doubt? These many disciples, while in the company of our Lord, experienced what no other men have been so wonderfully privy to from then to now.
One would think that witnessing the many miracles of our Lord would be enough to cause them to believe beyond all doubt, but what about the teachings, the sharing of all things including His love compassion and camaraderie? All of these things rendered their time with Him, their belief on Him to non-effect because they heard their Master confess His oneness with God, and urged all who listened to believe that He was the “Bread of Life” come down from heaven and that all men should eat of His flesh and drink of is blood. This teaching proved to be much too much and many of the disciples refused to follow Him after hearing it. Only the twelve remained. Peter speaking for himself and the twelve Peter said to our Lord, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter’s statements were statements of faith but what is more, he realized that he was on a “winning team” and Our Lord Jesus was and is a “winner.”
Many of us who now play on the 21st century Christian team are remaining on the team not because we are committed through our faith, but rather, because of tradition, socialization and self-aggrandizing reasons. It matters little that we serve on an absolute winner, we find satisfaction in the programs, positions and camaraderie. We don’t attend the practices and workouts (bible studies, trainings, Sunday school, etc., etc.), and when we come to the game on Sunday we are unprepared to play (praise, worship, pray etc., etc.). As a result some of us lack confidence in our abilities and who we are in Christ. We then become afraid to compete against self and against the enemy because we lack the skills necessary to take the field and contend for the faith. Finding ourselves in this position, there are only two things we can do to ease our pain and apprehension, we can become content to ride the pine and hope that we never get called on to go onto the field, or we quietly stop coming around. We quit a winning team.
Oh yeah, did I mention that on the third day of our season Danny showed up at the field and watched the team win one against Jamestown by the score of 6 to 2. After the game, we talked and he told me that he wanted to come back to the team, that he had made a mistake. I explained that the roster was full, so Dan became my assistant. He really learned the game and its strategies fast. He never played the game after that, retired without ever having a base hit. But, in later years he became a tremendous coach and mentor to his players. He said to me on that day at the restaurant, it was because I accepted him back so warmly and completely, it changed his heart about the game.
If you are one of those 21st century Christians I talked about earlier, and you want to come back to a winning team, there is someone waiting for you with warm and compassionate open arms that will change your heart about being on His team… His name is Jesus, who is the Christ.