Once in a baseball game I umpired, there was a runner at third base with one out. The
batter hit a fly ball deep into left field. The left fielder caught the fly ball for the second out.
The runner at third tagged up after the catch and took off for home. The left fielder threw the
ball to home but it went to the first base side of the plate by about five feet. The runner from
third slid into home feet first. His foot slid across the plate, then his leg, and then his slide
stopped with him sitting directly on home plate. Only after his slide stopped did the catcher
put the tag on him. I called the runner safe. But the coach from the defensive team came
running out to argue that his catcher had tagged the runner before he got to the base. The call
was so obvious that several fans from the coach’s team were telling him to sit down, that the
runner was safe. As the umpire, I wondered if the coach was watching the same play that I was.
Perhaps he blinked or looked away at just the wrong moment.
Sometimes, some people’s perspective is definitely skewed. Their own attitudes about
life and people and God frame their version of reality. Sometimes people just don’t see God.
They are unaware that the God who created them, who sustains them, who provides for them,
and who died and rose to save them is a part of their existence – so much a part that Jesus
said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
God does not want us to go through life oblivious to His presence and His life-saving,
life-giving power. God wants us to be overcomers through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:37).
Mediocrity and subsistence living is not God’s plan for us. Now this is where some church
people check out and stop paying attention. Some people say this kind of talk to leads to a
crass, empty prosperity gospel that is only concerned with how much money you make. Living
as a saint of God is NOT about the money. It is about living above the world, living in the
power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ to overcome the attitudes of defeat,
complacency, fear, and failure that the world, the devil, and our flesh try to convince us is our
lot in life.
So here are some questions for each of us to ask ourselves. Where in my life do I
accept less than God’s best for myself, my family, and my church? Where do I have the attitude
of “that’s good enough” for myself, my family, my church, and my God? Where do I stop short
of God’s high calling for my life? Where do I “sell out” to something less than God? Where am
I paralyzed by fear – fear of failure; fear of success; fear of what God might ask me to do; fear
of what people might say about me?
In this next 30 days will you take a step of faith, a step outside of fear, complacency,
and mediocrity, and step into the abundant life of faith in Jesus Christ? Will you join me in living
above the world in the life God has planned for us?
