Free Agency Has Killed the Game…

You may have heard that I am quite the baseball fan…

As I was shoveling the driveway this morning, contemplating the new month of January 2020, this thought – “Free Agency Has Killed the Game” – pummeled my thoughts. Let me explain…

Now, Free Agency started effectively on Nov. 4, 1976 in Major League Baseball, I was just over 3 years old. There was absolutely nothing about getting rid of the reserve clause (keeping players to a team, that could go elsewhere and play, even perhaps for more money) that did anything for me or against me on that day, or even now on this day. The simplest understanding, for the average person, it means nothing to the outcome of our lives.

Free Agency, gave the player the right to go wherever they felt like they could go – to get more playing time and more money. A decision that became all about themselves, not the team, not the dream, not relationship, all about ‘me’…

Ok, now that I have sucked you into this post…it is truly not about baseball…

You know too many of us in Christendom have become free agents. Worried and consumed about how this thing called life is going to treat us as individuals. Not buying into the “team”, the “Creator”, the passion to win – souls. It has taken away the desire to be like the One who paid it all for us.

We so often, can’t get out of our own way, we can’t stop looking at our own mirror, we can’t stop looking at the play of others and how if effects us – instead of looking at our play and how it affects others. Christendom has become a free agent game, about me and mine…

A well known Pastor in Christendom once penned these words as he opened his best selling book, “It’s not about you!” Pastor Rick Warren, got the point, that to live a “Purpose Driven Life”, one must not live for themselves, they have to give up their life and live for someone else…Jesus and those that Jesus wants to save!!!!

Jesus said in the book of Matthew 16:24 (NLT),

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Did you catch it, “…give up your own way…follow me.”?

That means me too! Dan Lewiston, give up your own way and follow Jesus!

You know in Baseball there are these 2 offensive plays…

A Sacrifice Bunt and A Sacrifice Fly

The ball goes different distances…one merely 10 feet from the catcher – maybe…the other in the air way out in the outfield. Both designed to get the runners around the bases, maybe even to score 1 run. Not designed for the hitter, but the base runner. Not designed for me, but for the team.

God, let me hit a Sac Bunt or Sac Fly today – for your team!