Just Seventeen Inches!

“Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifices, and to heed than the fat of rams.  (I Sam. 15:22).

Hey Gang:  Early in this New Year I want to share a story that has been in my archives for years; if heeded may put some grit into your decision making.  It is the story of an old grey-haired ,very successful baseball coach who was invited to speak at a conference of baseball coaches.  He was asked to share some of the things that made him successful as a coach.

As the old coach was introduced to the 4000 plus coaches, he shuffled up to the podium and was greeted with a very loud outpouring of respect for his accomplishments in the baseball world.    He was simply dressed in jeans and faded blue shirt -but what got the immediate attention of all the conference attendees was the home plate on string around his neck, pointed side down. 

After making a few introductory comments, one could hear the buzz among the audience wondering what was significance of the object around his neck.   He addressed the buzz by saying, I suppose by now you are wondering why this home plate around my neck.

 My purpose for speaking to you today is to share with you the most important lesson I Learned in my 78 years of life, which included many years of guiding young men in the joys of playing baseball.   He then asked, “Are there any Little League coaches here?”  Several hands went up.  He then asked the same question to each level of coach - Babe Ruth, high school.  college, Minor or Major leagues, “How wide tis home plate?”  They all in unison agreed it was seventeen inches.

“SEVEN-TEEN inches” he confirmed. "And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over these seventeen inches?”.  He gets a ticket home!  They do not say, no problem, we will make the base eighteen or nineteen and, if necessary, twenty inches; and, if you can’t hit that we will make it twenty five inches."

“Question, coaches?  What do we do when our star shows up late for practice or violates curfew?  How about if he uses drugs or alcohol?  Do we hold him accountable?  Or do we change the rules to accommodate him? Do we widen the plate?”

He then took out a sharpie and drew a picture of a house with door and two windows on the plate.  He then said, “This is the trouble with our homes, our marriages, with our discipline, with the way we parent our kids today, accountability has disappeared! No consequences have become the code of the jungle =which many homes have become.  In other words, we widen the plate!” 

  

He then added an American flag to his picture saying, “This is the problem in our schools today, the equality of education is going into the dumpster.  Why?  Because we have taken away the tools needed to teach core and fundamental truths to our kids.  We are allowing head-people, who have credentials behind their name who have never spent one minute in the front of the classroom of kids in a teaching mode, to set the standards.

He closed his dissertation by saying, “If I am lucky you will remember one thing from this old coach today.  If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard -standards that were set by our Founding Fathers, standards anchored on the Word of God, we will join all the other civilizations that went before us who also allowed their standards to become putrified.  Simply stated, we will become “dead meat”.

This blog is a wee-bit out-of-the norm for my contributions but I believe it needed to be said.  I believe our nation was blessed by God with a reprieve, when Donald James Trump was elected President, against all odds.  The reason, I am a firm believer that it was God who placed him in the Oval Office, is the tremendous fight Satan is doing and will continue to do until the Believers in this nation  “…humble themselves before he Lord, pray diligently, seek a deeper walk with the Lord and put away the nonsense of the world” (1 Chron. 7:14). 

I wonder if the floods, the tornadoes, the hurricanes, the tremendous fires and even the horrendous freezing temperatures and howling winds that we are experiencing now are a warning from God saying, “Wake up America and repent or you will join the ‘dead-meat’ brigade from the past. 

I do not have a care whether you are for or against our President; as Believers in Christ, we are compelled to pray FOR the leaders of our country.  (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

Blessings,

Gramps