I didn’t grow up with T.V.. We didn’t have one. We did have a radio however. Radio was our best friend. What I have discovered in these later years of my life, one of my comforts is listening to baseball on the radio. It takes me back to a very good time in my memories. I have Sirius X-M radio in my car and I do travel a-lot. If I am on the road and I need something to listen to, I find myself on the sports channels and listening to baseball. Doesn’t need to be the Minnesota Twins, it just needs to be baseball.
During this interesting time we are in, I haven’t missed a lot of things that others are challenged by. I have however, desperately missed listening to spring training and the opening of baseball. For some reason I really connect with sports. I am too old to play much anymore, my mind is willing but the body can’t follow through, but if I need to chill out, it’s a football game or baseball and I have been known to even watch soccer.
James talks about sports. In Verse 22 of chapter 1, it’s right there in black and white.
“22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”
So let me translate for you- “do not merely just listen to the coach, read the playbook and think you are a player. You have to run the plays. For if you simply read the playbook and think you are a player, you are like the person who puts on the uniform, gets the black line under your eyes and grabs the helmet but never leaves the locker room. You can’t call yourself a player and you won’t know the game. Only those who actually dress up, know the playbook and run onto the field when the coach nods his head can be considered a player. Only those players have a chance of scoring and winning”
Perhaps that’s a bit far fetched in my attempt to reword James 1, but it’s true. We have many people thinking they are something they are not. I don’t read a lot for pleasure. Some do. During this time many have cleared their bookshelves, gotten books online and borrowed from others. Just reading about France doesn’t make you a frenchman. Just reading about how to cook doesn’t make you a cook. You have to engage and discover. Being a Christian is so much more than reading the Bible. It’s the experience of letting the Holy Spirit move you onto the playing field of life and rub shoulders with people. It’s messy, it’s tiresome, you will get hurt and you will get dirty. But only when you be Jesus, do what Jesus would have done, can you consider yourself a disciple of Jesus. That’s a Christian- being Christ like. So grab the playbook and find what position you play and get in the game!
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