Spring has many signs of its arrival. Daylight savings has come and gone. The trees and flowers begin to bloom. In Oregon the temperate creeps above 60. Even the rain, though it is always raining, has a different pattern to it. Do you know something else that indicates Springtime? It’s baseball time! Spring training is in full swing and little leagues are getting started all over the country.
I recall a year when my oldest son, Paxton, had his first practice of the year just as a very delayed spring arrived. It was the same year I had my first practice, as well. Not to mean I was grown man wanting to build up my ego a little by dominating eight year olds on the field. I had the lucky job of being the head coach for the Cedar Mill Little League Division “A” rightfully named the “Padres” after my biased opinion of the greatest baseball team ever!
It’s important to know, my intentions were NOT to be the head coach. The thought never crossed my mind when we signed Paxton up just a few months shortly before. I had anticipated volunteering to help in some way, but I didn’t want to be the main guy. I had enough on my plate already, and we could barely make it work in our family schedule to havePaxton participate.
However, through the sneaky work of some of the other parents, I stumbled my way to agreeing to take it on. This wasn’t some super duper evil plan by a few select parents, who will remain anonymous, to get me to coach. In reality, it just kind of felt that way. However, it might have more to do with the fact that I have a hard time saying, “No”!
Heading into the first week of my new responsibilities, I had the opportunity to sit with the other head coaches and the league to go over the season. We reviewed safety policies and field logistics. You know, all the fun stuff that my childhood cherishes about the sport. Even though the subject material was near the point of placing me in a coma, I realized it’s not going to be that bad.
After all, this is the same level that my son played last year. So much of the attitude and atmosphere of what to expect from the team is the same. Last year, if just one of the kids caught the ball the parents erupted in cheers! Expectations in performance were kept to a minimum. It also doesn’t hurt when your own kid is ecstatic that you’re his coach. That alone makes it worth the extra effort on my part.
Finally agreeing to take the role on, the workload immediately started. Being at every practice, wrangling the kids and impressing them with curve balls seemed to be the least of my worries, however much I thought that was exactly what I was signing up for. First order of business was an extensive coaches meeting quite fond of paperwork. Each league has to review the Little League policies to the coaches at the beginning of the year.
However, it was at this meeting that I learned something very interesting about the National Little League Organization. Halfway through the piles of information, something popped up that caught my attention. That something was the Little League pledge. If you’re not familiar with the pledge, here it is and I wonder if you’ll catch what I did.
I trust in God
I love my country
And will respect its laws
I will play fair
And strive to win
But win or lose
I will always do my best
Isn’t that interesting! The very first line is “I Trust in God”. It doesn’t start with anything about the game of baseball, but with God. That’s something I can certainly appreciate. However, the more I thought about it, the fact that the pledge opens with God wasn’t what ultimately stuck with me. It was the timing of being made aware of it.
You have to understand, I was at a baseball meeting. It was not the typical scenario I would have thought to reference an internal discussion I was having about “trusting God”. Perhaps that’s the point however. I had been thinking a lot about what it means to enact trust in God and it shows up between “What to do in case of an injury” and the “required equipment for each team”. When that happens, you really start to think about it even more than you already were!
The reason why the topic of “trust” has been swirling in my head for some time, is I’ve noticed a theme being played out in the Bible as I’ve spent more time consistently reading it these last few months. What I’ve learned seems to be summed up with the phrase,
“Do you trust me now?”
The Bible unveils our history of incident after incident of God giving us blessing, promises, and reason to trust in Him; only for us to respond by not trusting God, plotting our own course, failing miserably, and then God lavishing us with His grace. All that is then followed by God teaching us to trust again.
This isn’t contained to just what unfolds in the pages of the Bible. We see this rhythm in our personal life as well. It is a rhythm that brings out the areas in our life where we lack confidence in our relationship with the Lord, only for Him to be patient to work through those issues with us; instilling in us a movement towards a faithfulness that mirrors His own.
I started to see the importance of this pattern when I began to study the end of chapter four in the book of Mark. After an extended period of time of Jesus teaching the crowds that we can indeed trust God, Jesus was now on the boat right after he calmed the storm where everything He had been saying was 100% applicable.
excerpt from Chapter 1 of "Trust the Story" by Rian Lange
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