Opening Day
Hey, everyone!
As I’m writing this on Thursday, I just want to wish you…
Happy Holiday!!!
Yes!! It’s here!
Opening Day!
“Opening what!?”
Well, Opening Day of the 2025 Major League Baseball season!
Our Atlanta Braves are looking good with Ronald Acuña and Spencer Strider back (maybe not today, but soon!) and predictions are that Matt Olson is the most likely to take the Padres starter deep for his first (of many!) homers of the year!
One presence that may soon become an absence at Truist Park (and all the stadiums!) in the not too distant future is the umpire behind the plate, surprisingly!
There was some experimentation with the digital “man in blue” in spring training. It’s that electronic strike zone they show on every pitch that does little more than let everyone know how far off the ump was on his call. But the ABS (“automated ball/strike”) system was used in spring training games when a batter, pitcher, or manager wanted to challenge the ump’s call. The pitch would be immediately shown on the Jumbotron and in a couple of seconds everyone would know if it was a ball or strike and if the ump was right or needed glasses!
Those reviews of plays and calls have really calmed the game down! Managers used to fly out of their dugouts…and off the handle!… to register their descent of a call at the plate or a fly ball on the line (or not)…
Now it’s all settled in slo-mo from seven angles. So, what’s the point of kicking dust and flying flicks of spit punctuating the untranslatable?
That’s why there’s one baseball record that’ll never be broken!
Former Braves manager, Bobby Cox holds the record for the most ejections from games for “over-protesting” umpiring decisions…162!!
Twice in World Series games!
Once in a seventh game!
Jeff Francoeur was ejected from his first game as a Brave.
He was kinda upset so Bobby…
who was also “sent to the showers”…
told him to calm down but get ready for a $500 fine to show up in the mail.
“Just pay it and move on! Or you can do what I do. I write ‘em a check for $20,000 and tell ‘em to let me know when I need to make a deposit!”
What if there was an umpire on life’s diamond who could eject folks from conversations ( sometimes it’s about politics or the news!) when their words become too “hot ‘n spicy”?
Or from verbal and/or gesticulor disagreements in traffic that go beyond acceptable levels?
Or an ump who could make the call when a chat session is about to become a gossip-fest and you need to know something said was a “foul, just outside the line”?
You do have an umpire ready to make the call!
In Colossians 3, Paul wrote that instead of deploying “anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language” (verse 9) in your convos, let your heart be full of “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience!” (Verse 12)
And if you say something that shoulda stayed unsaid, how do you know?
Your umpire will make the call!
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…And be thankful!” (Colossians 3:15)
When Paul wrote this, he did it using the Greek language and the word he used for “rule” is the word “brabeuo”…which means…
”to arbitrate or to…umpire”!
“Let Jesus’s peace be your ump!!”
You know how, if you say some knucklehead thing, you immediately feel, “I wish I could take that back! Which I can’t! Yuck!”
Or…
“Did I just say something that hurt their feelings?”
Or…
“Was I trying to show-off how much I think I know, back there?”
And what you DON’T feel is…peace?!
On the other hand, you can just as easily have those moments when you have the opportunity to share with someone something super cool or beautiful that you can see God doing in them…
Or…
You give someone a call because God has put them on your heart and you find that the voice of someone thinking of them, was exactly what they needed that very moment…
Or…
You ask someone if you could pray for them and it’s just what they needed…
Or…
Someone tells you that you just said something that helped them more than you know and you didn’t even know it…
And it just feels…good ‘n sweet!
Whether you feel good or yucky about something you say, I think that’s the peace of Jesus…
Its presence…
Or its absence…
letting you know…
“That was low and outside”…
Or…
“That was a foul”…
Or…
“Safe! Safe at home!”
A few years ago, my friend Bill Paige came down to speak at our Monday evening Young Life banquet. We were thinking of what to do during the day and decided to go visit someone from Triple C in the hospital in Knoxville. We had a friendly chat with a woman at an information desk and after our visit, stopped to say “goodbye “. And suddenly, Bill said…
“Sally (not her real name ), God is telling me that I need to pray for you!”
“Really?!” She answered.
“Yes! Would that be ok?”
“Sure!”
So we bowed together and Bill prayed a beautiful prayer of blessing. When we opened our eyes, we saw that she had tears streaming down her face.
“I didn’t know how much I needed that!” she told us.
Bill had decided to stay over till Wednesday so he could go with me to my Tuesday afternoon class at Morgan County Correctional Facility. I gave him the whole time to share some Scriptures along with a million amazing (and often hilarious!) stories of God’s faithfulness in his life. When he finished, I told my guys the story of our trip to the hospital and our encounter with someone who needed prayer more than she knew.
One of my students raised his hand.
“Was she a middle aged African American woman named Sally?” he asked.
“Yes! How did you know?” I asked.
“She’s my aunt!”
The next week he told me that he had related to his mom on the phone that the guy who had been such a blessing to her sister had come the next day to be a blessing to him!
And I thought I had heard in my heart…
after Bill said “Amen” at the end of his prayer for Sally…
the peace of Jesus say…
“That was a HOOOOOME RUUUUUN!!!”