[Note: This article was originally published in March 2025.]
It’s baseball season again! I recall a girl’s baseball game where one girl hit her very first home run. She missed touching first base and turned back to do so only to throw her knee out of joint. She fell down in agony. The rules stated that her teammates couldn’t touch her, or it would be an automatic out. The rules said the team could have a pinch runner, but only on a base hit. Her team was at a loss as to how to help her.
Then the opposing team’s first and second baseman picked her up and carried her around first, second, and third base to home plate. It was that run that beat them 3-2. Why had they done it? Their answer, “We just felt she had earned it!” They did lose an incidental game but, instead, gained a permanent and highest honor: great character and noble sportsmanship. Winning over other people never ranks as high as winning with God!
We may lose some of our battles, even disastrously, but we will never lose our hope. We dream on! Even in the midst of hopelessness, our confidence is resolute. Hope that is authentic never quits! It simply reveals the level of confidence you have in the teaching and promises of Messiah. The more you build your life around His purposes, perceptions and promises, the more your hope and confidence will empower you!
Never give up your dream, your quest, your passion for how the Lord specifically wants to use and bless you!
He wants and plans to create something unique between you and Himself that will result in: 1) you becoming more like Him; 2) you bringing more life to His people and vitality to His purpose, and 3) you giving Him more pleasure as you complete His will (Heb. 10). Embracing these three pursuits turns you into a contented overcomer! You will become a possessor of His purpose, peace, promises, power, and pleasure, because you have embraced the same sent mission of Messiah Jesus (John 17:18, 20:21)! You bless others by being exactly like the Lord Jesus–with the power of His Spirit in you, He calls you to “repeat His life”! Anything else–economics, politics, finances, popularity, etc., will leave you frustrated and empty! It is in this pursuit of Christ-likeness, that true joy and fulfillment are found!
