He’s Rooting For Me

My Father cannot play the game for me. He cannot step up to the mound and pitch for me. What fun would that be for me? What reward would I get by letting him strike every one out? Would I ever learn to pitch if Father threw for me every time? Why even play the game?

No, Father instead takes me into the backyard and puts on the mitt and sits down behind a makeshift home plate and tells me to throw. He catches pitch after pitch and watches me practice. After several dozen pitches, we take a break and He suggests some changes in my mechanics. He shows me the delivery and grip, and I mirror His movements. He even steps behind me, takes my hand in his and we do the motion over and over in slow motion, all the time He’s asking, “You see? How does that feel? Do you understand how this is better?”

I throw several dozen more pitches and see more strikes. As the ball pops the mitt, Father yells, “Yeah son! Great pitch, you’re getting it! Do it again!” I continue to throw, but I soon get tired, and He stands up and walks over, puts His arm around me and says, “Son, good job. You’re really improving. You’re going to do great tomorrow. Just remember what we’ve worked on. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s game, can you?”.

Tired and happy, I lean under His arm and just smile. Looking over, I didn’t notice, but my big Brother is standing there, big smile on His face. My Brother has gone through this before. He’s played the game, worked with Father in the yard, and went all the championship and won the game. Defeated our rival and humbled him for good. Cost Him everything, but He did it with love because He wanted to see me win the game too.

The game is a lot more intense than I thought. Every hitter wants to knock one over the wall on me, and they all look intense. Every inning has it’s own challenge, and the game is so back and forth. One batter I dominate, the next one hits one up the middle. They even score on me, but I seem to be doing better than the last game. In fact, I seem to be getting better as the season progresses.

The best part is my Father is sitting there, totally focused on me and cheering me on. He’s never criticizing me, just yelling out encouragement. There’s my Brother, right there behind the backstop, hands on the fence, peering through the wire. He seems to know exactly what I’m going through, and I know He’s been there before, so that’s providing me motivation. In fact, I can feel Him inside me. I can’t explain it, but I just sense He’s in my every movement and thought and it makes pitching in this game so much easier for some reason.

My Coach is constantly encouraging me. I have a direct connection with Him, and I look to Him before every pitch. He’s been working with me all season too, and He’s such a good teacher and instructor. I’ve learned the in’s and out’s of the game from Him and the best part is that He’s right on the field with me. He never seems to contradict what Father says, and He sounds and speaks just like my Brother, reminding me of things we’ve worked on and done in the past, and showing me how to face situations when they come up during the game that I haven’t faced before.

With the bases loaded and the count at 3-2, I’m scared to death. The stress of this game is intense and I don’t want to mess this up. I need to throw a strike or I lose this game. I’m sweating, I’m tired. My arm is a little sore and the sun is just beating down on my head.

I look to my Coach and He’s clapping His hands together, “You can do it Bobby. Dig in. Take your time. Focus on the mitt. Trust your arm. Just throw it like you practiced.”

My big Brother is pressed against the fence, big smile, clapping his hands. Looks me right in the eyes and doesn’t say a word. His look was all I needed. That look of confidence says it all for me. He believes in me more than I do. It calms me.

Father is there in his chair, big smile on His face. I know He’s watching the game and everything going around the field, but to me, He only seems to be focusing on me. He doesn’t look nervous. He’s looking at me and He says, “Just remember what we practiced, Bob. Just like the backyard. You can do it. I’m proud of you, son. Just throw it to the mitt.”

As the batter swings and misses, my Coach, my Brother, and my Father are cheering like no one else. They are hi-fiving each other and bragging about me. They all 3 grab me off my feet and swing me around, hugging me and telling me how proud they are of me. It’s only one game in a long season, but after all the bad games I’ve been having lately, this was needed.

It means everything that they cheer me on, especially given the last few games I’ve been plain awful. I’ve gave up a ton of runs, walked a lot of hitters, threw balls in the dirt, and hit a bunch of kids who didn’t have time to jump out of the way. I just couldn’t seem to do anything right, but they didn’t give up on me. I can’t believe they stand by me as much as I screw up in the game. But whether I pitch well or pitch poorly, they are all 3 there game after game, inning after inning, pitch after pitch. When I’m struggling, They are providing encouragement and coaching. When I succeed, they are happier than I am and proud as can be. They are focused during all practices on me and my success. They don’t ever seem to tire of teaching me, encouraging me, or kicking me in the butt when I’m dragging along. There have been many times I got so tired of the game, that I asked to sit out. I even asked my Father and Brother at times to go pitch for me. They didn’t make fun of me for such a silly request, instead they helped get me back out there and keep pitching.

But after today’s success, I got to savor the victory. I got to see the fruit of all that hard work in the backyard. I got to see my Father and Brother bragging about me. I got to see my Coach smile and see His hard work in me pay off. I’m ready for the next game.

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Everything I Know About Miracles, I Learned From My Dog Mulligan

This is the tale of three dogs; Jordan, Charis and Mulligan. Well, three of my dogs.

Jordan, was our black lab, we adopted in Pensacola around 1996. She was a wonderful perfect dog. Never needed a leash to walk her. One day in early May 2008, we noticed she was not right. Took  her to the vet, and to make a long story short she had to be put down that week. She had advanced stages of liver cancer.

This happened right in the middle of my business crashing and burning, my wife and I having serious marital issues and basically smack dab in the middle of the crap hitting the fan in my life. This was year 1 of a very long 3 years journey.

Our family was devastated. And being the man of the house that I am, wanted to get a new dog within a few months. Sarah, my wife, resisted. We didn’t know if we’d be living in a different house, or where we’d be living, could we afford a dog, it was all up in the air.

To  top it off, we couldn’t agree on the type of breed. I was done with a lab (everyone has a lab) and wanted a German Short Haired Pointer.

Eventually, as is usually the case, I wore my wife down in February of that next year. We contacted a breeder to adopt a female German Short Haired Pointers. We named her Charis (Greek for grace).

Once we got her home and took her to the vet for her check up, we noticed her legs were kind of ‘off’. In the end she had experienced trauma to her legs and her patella had fused to her knee joint. She had to be put down. We had her less than 1 month. It just killed me.

I had worked hard to make this new dog happen. Done my research, contacted the breeder, worn him out in finding the right kind of deal on the dog. Only to see it all fall apart in less than a month.

For three months I was just numb. Basically feeling that I’d never get another dog. We couldn’t agree on a type of dog and didn’t want to get burned again. Two things we did know… I didn’t want another Lab, my wife didn’t want a male dog.

I had stopped talking about getting a dog, stopped looking at the rescue pages, stopped contacting breeders. I had given up and resigned myself to not having a dog for a very long time.

Sounds like a place for God to show up…. and boy did He.

In the middle of April of that year, less than 4 weeks after we put Charis down my wife and I were at a horse show with the family. We noticed off in the distance a chocolate lab with the rescue group. My wife and I both looked at each other, saying.. ‘Wow what a beautiful dog’.  We noticed the handler had him well trained. Perfect coat, not a blemish on him. Except he was, well, a he.

My wife said; ‘oh well, too bad, so sad, he’s a male, no way, let’s keep going.’

Except we couldn’t keep our eyes off him. We talked with our friends in the rescue group. His story was simple. He was an owner surrender. The day before, he was slated to be put down by York county rescue. The lab rescue group went and picked him up about 1 hour prior to him being put down.

He was most likely a pure breed lab. He was trained, about one year old. Maybe two. To say my wife and fell in love with him, was and is an understatement.

By the end of the weekend he was ours. The absolutely perfect dog for our family situation. He fit right into our routine and loves to do all the family things we love to do.

Oh and the dogs name? Mulligan.

Why is that significant? In golf a Mulligan is; redo of an errant shot, usually on the first tee. It is also known as a ‘redo’.

I know what you are asking yourself.. “Geez, Matt, this is a great story, but what has this got to do with miracles?”

Well everything.

When we lose something near and dear to us, our tendancy is to work like hell to get it back. We work hard, we strive, we plot, scheme, plan and basically work to force the hand of God to what we want, when we want it, in the manner in which we want to get it.

This is what I did with Charis, the second dog. I forced the issue and in the end experienced a bunch more pain. I was bound and determined to get the dog I wanted in the time frame, I thought acceptable.

However, that didn’t work out, did it. But God had a plan to get us the perfect dog for us. Even though, my wife didn’t want a male and I didn’t want a lab.

When we saw Mulligan, my wife and knew it was the right dog. We tried to denie it for a few minutes, but the pull to him was uncontrollable. It all feel together perfectly for us and it was totally the hand of God.

The best part? The name that was already in place for the dog. Mulligan. My wife and I joke, Mulligan is our prophetic dog. A reminder from God that he knows the perfect timing of it all and if we do screw up and try to do it in our timing, He’ll give us a Mulligan. A redo.

I have to keep this in mind as my family languishes with one car and we desire to have a second. Or in my business when things don’t grow as fast as I want them to grow, or just in life or business, or whatever.

The first rule is ‘Father knows best’. The second is: ‘If I screw up and try to know what’s better for me vs. God, then if I do screw up, God will always give me a Mulligan.’

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Jesus Paid It All, All To Him I Owe?

When I’ve sung this song, it often produced feelings of guilt and stirred feelings of “I gotta pay you back, Jesus.  Thanks for covering me. My turn.”

I’ve heard people say many times, “You’ve got to count the cost of following Jesus. It’s going to cost you everything.”

What does that mean?  Isn’t grace free?

We live in a culture where we demand equality.  Especially in financial matters.  We will not allow someone to give us anything without feeling obligated to send something in return.

When we get a great gift, we feel obligated to give a great gift back.

We get increasingly competitive at Christmas, and constantly try to out-do each other.

We never want to be in a position of “owing” anybody anything.  We try to make good with anyone that we’ve been given something from, because we’re totally uncomfortable until we even up.

We do this with the crucifixion.  We try and put ourselves into a state where we grieve over and over for Jesus and the beating he took for us.  We cannot stand that Jesus had to suffer and die FOR ALL THE SINS I’VE DONE.  We drive up the “debt” of guilt and spend all our time working to free ourselves from that debt.  All our service and activity is geared toward relieving that guilt.  That makes us feel better.

What did Jesus really demand when he talked about “the cost” of following him?  Could he mean something way different than money?

One of my friends sent me an email a while back, and he said he had a dream about me.  In his dream, he was watching a man shovel hay in from a huge pile into a bigger barn.  The man was doing the work himself.  On a bench away from the action, another man was sitting there watching the other man do all the work.  At closer inspection, my friend identified the man working as Jesus (don’t know how, but he knew), and the man sitting on the bench was me! Jesus turned to my friend and told him that the work he was doing was for Bob and he looked over at me on the bench.

When I heard of the dream, immediately I had 2 reactions – I am seriously allergic to hay, so the thought of taking a pitchfork and shoveling hay into a barn on a hot day closes my lungs up.  Yet even with my aversion to hay and what it would do to me physically, I felt really guilty and had a desire in my heart to pick up the fork and help him.

Then it hit me with 100-ton force – I am a bad receiver.  I cannot accept grace from anyone — even Jesus himself.

I HATE receiving gifts, and NEVER feel comfortable receiving anything for free.  I always position myself as the giver, and absolutely love giving the bigger and better gifts and the feeling that produced in me.  I never allow myself the grace to receive anything from anybody without giving back in return.

Strip that all away and it is nothing more than pride and false humility.  It’s not humility at all – it’s sin.

So when I had my breakdown, and I had to give up everything, I had to let Jesus start doing things for me. I had to let others start doing things for. It made me really uncomfortable.  I mean physically uncomfortable.

Think about that dream.  It was as if I was embarrassed and unable to allow Jesus to work for me.  I wanted to take his place even in a state of weakness.  How in the world do I resolve in my mind that me doing something like shoveling a mountain of hay is not something I can allow Jesus to do for me, even if it will kill me?  I remember Peter had the same issue.  “Jesus you ain’t washing my feet, dude.”

Jesus WANTS to do the work. The work would kill me, but for him it’s easy and enjoyable.  Why is it so hard to let someone else do the work for me, let alone my brother and savior Jesus Christ? This attitude makes it impossible for me to accept grace from him, or get it from others.  I just could not receive anything from anybody, especially God himself.

I have to think that in the scheme of things, this extended season I am going through is as much about me giving up the things which drove me – pride, approval of others, being the giver not the receiver, always being the “fall guy”, doing the work myself when others need to do it, taking financial and emotional responsibility for people that willingly give it up to me, always being the “responsible one”, never accepting a handout, never accepting a gift with grace, and countless other flaws.

Letting all of this go has been painful – for me and those around me.  People are confused, upset, and judgmental.  It’s been a horrible ride for people that counted on me in the past, and I can no longer provide the support or be counted on doing the work. There’s people I even owe things to that I cannot pay back right now.

I am in a season where I am limited in what I can do, and limited in where I feel free to roam.  My “ministry or service” is nothing anyone would sanction with a budget or fanfare.  Loving people one at a time and engaging them in conversation seems too simple and small, yet it’s what he’s showing me to do.

He’s got my spiritual life, my business, and my relationships in a purifying fire to burn away all the crap that I’ve allowed to pile on.  I’m betting there’s a lot of crap in that hay pile that Jesus needs to shovel away too.  It’s getting to the pure gold and burning away the garbage I’ve built up on it.

I am accepting the fact that Jesus paid it all. I am accepting the fact I don’t have to pay him back.  I am accepting the fact that in this season I will let a lot of people down that used to count on me, and people will continue to question, judge, and be upset with my lack of action.  There are people that have given me financial help, physical help, spiritual help, and advice for which I am unable to pay back now, or maybe ever.

My life has been simplified to a being totally engaged with Father, Spirit, and Son and figuring that out without distraction.  Being totally engaged with my wife and daughters  and family in a new way.  Getting real with a few old and new friends who are accepting this new me and totally supporting me, even while going through their own process. Being a person that lives in the moment, and has eyes to see what’s going on around me right now and totally live in that.

My question to you is this – are you trying to pay back a debt for something you cannot pay? Is Jesus someone you accept gifts from, or accept and try to pay back?  Are you able to accept gifts from others?  What have you experienced?

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