I love the game of baseball. Part of this is because I see so much of life in the game. It illustrates life over the long haul. Unlike other sports that come down to a few events or one game a week for 16 weeks, baseball goes on and on for 162 games. (My wife thinks that’s about 161 games too long!) There is no clock. Lot’s of time can pass in a baseball game. There are stretches of time where nothing seemingly significant is happening, but if you are a real student of the game, you realize all these seemingly insignificant moments add up to the difference between winning and losing.

And the statistics in baseball are very forgiving. No one’s perfect. If you get a hit a third of the time you are at bat, you are doing very well—among the league leaders, in fact. If you win more games than you lose as a pitcher, you are probably worth keeping on the team. The game is made up of a lot of individual performances, but everyone plays on a team, so that one person might have a bad day and get picked up by his teammates who are doing better that day.

But other things about baseball are not as forgiving, like balls and strikes, runners who are out or safe, and hit balls that land fair or foul. There is no going back on these calls—no second chances—and an umpire, whose word cannot be refuted, makes all these calls.

All of these are metaphors for things I know to be true about life and faith. But there is yet another reason why I would choose baseball as my metaphor for life. I used to have a recurring nightmare I that I never shaken from my memory. It comes from when I was younger and playing the game whether in Little League as a child or later on in a church softball team as a teenager. I used to dream I was trying to make it to a game but I forgot my baseball glove and had to go back home for it, and in the process, I never made it to the game. I would always be racing to the ball diamond, knowing I was missing my chance to play in the game, and then I would always wake up before I got there.

For me, this represents growing up in the church with demands on my life and behavior that I knew I never could quite fulfill. I was in the game—I had a reputation to fulfill—but I never really thought I could play it. I knew everything about the game, but even though I had the desire, and I was trying, I never quite arrived. I think this has been my metaphor: trying to live a good Christian life and knowing I was never really going to live up to what I was supposed to be. It wasn’t until I discovered God’s grace and His power and promise to achieve in my life what He set out to accomplish, that I began to trust that God could win the game in spite of me. And I was still on the team, even if I was late. I was on this team by His favor I did not deserve, not by performance.

I guess you could say then for me that life has been a series of frustrations—late arrivals. Learning to trust not myself and my own abilities, but God’s grace and presence in my life, and many times, despite what I know, that is the last thing I come to instead of the first, as it should be. I still panic and get sweaty palms when I forget that He is in charge. Then I remember He can use me even if I forgot my mitt.

Life is truly just a series of tests. There is no other way to grow. Some tests are tests of faith from which we emerge stronger and more confident. Others are tests of maturity from which we learn how much farther we have to go. They are both important. It seems, at least to me, that I am usually experiencing both of these most of the time. In some area of my life, I am getting stronger, and just when I’m about to get proud of this, some other place where I am currently blowing it humbles me.

I was recently in the presence of a young 17-year-old girl who was living on the streets of a downtown urban center. She would be referred to as a “gutterpunk” today, one of many teenagers who have run away from home and are living in a community of sorts. These kids know each other and look out for each other as they move about the country via railway boxcars.

I would never have encountered this girl personally had I not known a gentleman who has made it his mission to work among these kids, and he took me into town to view personally what he and his staff were doing. I chatted with her for about five minutes—five minutes that seemed like hours because of how uncomfortable I was. What could I say to her? How could I connect? I felt nothing but distance and fear.

It wasn’t until later that I realized how I could have seen her. I have a daughter who was 17 once. I know this stage. What if she were mine? I could have loved her as my own, hugged her, or given her my coat. I could have done any number of things right down to offering our home to her for a while. Instead I disconnected and felt distant and uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to leave. I realize now these were my personal choices, although I had plenty of excuses at the time.

I look at this appointment now as a test that I failed. I was too trapped in my own feelings of fear and detachment to get outside myself and care for her. This is a recurring problem with me that this test showed up. I try to remember it in hopes that I can eventually pass this test and move on to another.

What I “own” is on “loan.” If I truly believed this, I might be able to detach my feelings from my bank account. I might be able to get free of stress. Some think we attach importance to our possessions, but I think we have huge amounts of stress attached to our possessions. We are all trying to keep up and we stretch too far and have to live with the tension. George Carlin’s comedy routine about “stuff” hits the mark with me and I think most of our culture. We have way too much stuff than we know what to do with.

If we lived like life was on loan, we’d probably be healthier and more capable of helping others. Someone once said our mission in life is to love people and use things, and the materialism of our culture and society has us loving things and using people. What will it take to get this back in line? A belief that life is on loan, and an awareness that our lives and the lives of those around us are a sacred trust from God, and we are called to honor that trust in all that we do and say.

Luke 12:22-34 Jesus talks about possessions.

Luke 16:1-13 Jesus teaches on the proper use of money.

1 Timothy 6:17:19 Paul gives instructions to the rich.