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Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!
In the movie The Sandlot, Smalls, the new kid on the block – total geek, zero skills, no knowledge of baseball, doesn’t even know Babe Ruth (“You’re killin’ me, Smalls!!”) – stands, newly borrowed glove in hand, looking pathetically at Benny ‘the Jet’ Rodriguez, as the rest of the gang waits impatiently for the game to continue.
“How do I catch it?”
Benny grins compassionately, confidently. “You just stand there, stick your glove out in the air…I’ll take care of it”.
With such skillful precision that Smalls needs not even open his eyes (which he doesn’t), the ball plops, smack into the offered up glove, while the incredulous team looks on open-mouthed. He has nothing to offer the game, but at the hand of the skillful Benny, Smalls just has to show up and sacrifice his glove in submission to ‘the Jet’ Rodriguez.
“I urge you, brethren…present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God…this is your spiritual service of worship”.
To surrender our lives to the Lordship of Jesus, we just need to show up empty handed.
Only when we fully accept that we are incapable of pleasing a Holy God with our deeds or impressing Him with our abilities, can we come to a place of absolute humility where obedience is our only option. This denial of our ‘self’ renders us useless, but in God’s gracious economy, He accepts it as an offering of worship!
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect …”
Have you been sitting on the sidelines, wondering whether God can use you, or whether you’ll make a fool of yourself it you try?
In the Sandlot, it was all Benny’s: the Game, the Glove, the Glory.
Everything worth having is God’s.
How do you catch it?
Just stand there, offer God all of your nothings, and watch the Master create from your sacrifice a vessel into which He will not only reveal His perfect will, but empower its beautiful fulfillment in you.
Game on!
For further reading: Ephesians 2:5; Philippians 2:5-8, 17; Hebrews 9:26; Galatians 2:20.
This is SOOO counter-intuitive. But in a strange way, the counter-intuitive-ness, almost confirms to me that it is consistent with God’s way. (The first will be last, the poor will inherit the earth, a seed falling to the ground must die, etc.) Shalom, Girl.
I love Sand Lot! And I love the connection you made to the empty glove.
Well…the glove was the only thing Smalls had going for him, and it wasn’t even his (which is precisely the point).
Anything we have of any value belongs to the LORD, and anything praiseworthy that we can achieve (e.g. catch a well-placed ball) likewise is for His Glory (k’vod).
So. What’s in it for us?
Your turn…
“What’s in it for us?”
We get to be part of what God is doing! The creator of everything is at work, and he invites us to be in the midst of what we He is doing. It is His glove, His ball, His hat, His game, His everything, and He shares all of it with us. Incredible!
Amen! Crazy ain’t it?
He shares it with us, and makes us heirs…
“…according to the riches of His glory, we are strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; and that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, are able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height –
to know – the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, and we are filled with all the fulness of God.”
Now, that’s worth having.
Louise, you have an amazing gift of communicating priceless Biblical truths with great analogies… I loved Sandlot, too! So tell me, where does this giant monster dog and slobbery baseball fit into all of this?
) (Mary Anthony’s big brother)
Ha!
The slobbery baseball is…ah…salvation…and…um…Smalls thought he’d lost it, but he realised that you can’t lose something that is in God’s hands. His salvation was intact, but a little beaten up, nonetheless.
And I guess Hercules is…um…(I’m making this up as I go along)…Truth.
Truth is big.
Truth is sometimes scary, and we try to avoid it.
James Earl Jones would have to be God.
He owns Truth. And He gives us the Greater Gift if we come and talk to Him once a week about Baseball (Fellowship).
He’s free on Saturdays and Sundays, and He has a very deep voice, and apparently likes Baseball a lot (See also: Field of Dreams).
The End.
(Don’t even ask about Wendy Peffercorn)