Baseball and Grace

It’s no secret, I love baseball. When my brothers and I were growing up we invented a game in our backyard called “Balooga Ball”. It was our own form of baseball and it was amazing. I loved playing as a kid. I married a rabid Cardinals fan. We spent our first seven anniversaries going to weekends at Busch Stadium. My son eats, sleeps, drinks, and breathes baseball. Some people are Republicans, some are Democrats, we’re Baseball People.

As my love for the game has matured beyond wanting to see the long-ball. I have discovered the raw beauty of the game. I know that soccer is the “beautiful game” and the “world’s game”. Baseball will always be for me the beautiful game. It’s full of strategy and decisions. On every pitch nine men move together like a symphony. Baseball, for me, will always be pure. There is nothing like the moment you walk from concourse out to the field. The sounds, the smells, the colors, it is unique.

Beyond the beauty, I’ve come to love the way that baseball rejoices in failure. Perfection is not something that can be attained. Baseball, alone in sport, has grace built into its very soul. The greatest players of all time fail 70% of the time. If you’re the home team, no matter how far behind you are, you get your last bats. The game is timeless. You play until the the game is over, no matter the score. When you have a bad game, you come back tomorrow to play again.

When I think about following Jesus, I realize that I fail more than 70% of the time. Yet, I’m not rejected. I am still loved and embraced. When I have a bad day I get to come back and try again tomorrow. The game never ends. No score is kept because the outcome has already been determined by Jesus.

Grace, it’s that word that represents the idea that God loves us regardless of our brokenness. It’s that word that represents his relentless pursuit us. It’s an idea that changed the world.

Every time I watch a baseball game, I see grace.

The post Baseball and Grace appeared first on The Journal by Daniel M. Rose.

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