Stepping up to the plate

As I continue down this road of "leaving it all on the field" at the end of my life, I must be open to allowing anything to happen to me, around me, or through me. As I coach 7th grade baseball, one key thing that we're instilling is for boys not to be afraid of the ball. They must face the pitcher as if he's going to hit it no matter what. It's our job as coaches to equip each boy with the skills and confidence to hit the ball. They do it, though, because others have gone before them. This is where the "greatest commandment" comes in play from Matthew 22:37-39 - "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets". A reason why we don't follow this great summary of the law from Jesus (see Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 for background) is that it just looks so foreign to practice this in our everyday world. No one else, so we think, loves God that much or shows love to people around them. I can't just start being nice and loving to people just because God thinks it's a good idea. Well, why not? If God is who we think and say He is, what's the logical response to that? People NEED this kind of love. They are aching for this kind of love. They are starved for it. Yet, like a peasant at a king's table that doesn't eat anything because it all looks so foreign, they need someone to model and tell and live out what this love really means. When we don't express this love in clear, tangible, faith-filled ways we are communicating how little we think God's love really is.