“And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
I have a ten-year-old son who loves baseball more than he loves to eat. In fact, Mark is one of the finest baseball players for his age that I’ve ever laid my eyes on. But then again, no parent can be objective when it comes to their own child. You know what I mean?
This summer, Mark made the all-star team and we had the opportunity to travel to Valdosta, Georgia to compete with other all-star teams from across the state. I don’t know who was more excited about our trip, but I’m grateful that God brought that opportunity along. It deepened my relationship with my son and taught me even more about my relationship with Christ.
Mark looks up to me just as any son looks up to his father. I know that and I try ever so hard to live up to his expectations. What he doesn’t know, like so many of our children, is that we also look up to them. In fact, my experience with Mark this summer confirmed how we sometimes place unrealistic expectations on our children and perhaps even ourselves.
Every time my son hit that baseball, I was right there with him, running down the baseline, trying to beat that throw to first base. You see, my prime has passed me, as far as baseball is concerned, so now I play the game of baseball through my son. It’s called living vicariously.
Jesus lives through us the same way that I live through Mark when he plays baseball. When we made the decision to accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we also agreed to allow his spirit to dwell within us and guide our lives. In other words, the accomplishments that Christ registers in this world are going to depend on how we play the game.
So as Christians, we, too, are members of a team, and our team is called the Body of Christ. That’s why the Apostle Paul said, “So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12:5)
Each of us has a position on that team based upon the particular talents that we have. The Bible refers to those talents as gifts, and God expects us to use those gifts to win others to Christ, even when we don’t believe we can hit the pitch. “On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” (1 Corinthians 12:22)
I’ll tell you something else that I’ve learned. My relationship with Mark has also taught me an important lesson about God’s forgiveness. There have been times when he has tested my patience as a parent. To tell you the truth, I’m embarrassed to admit that there have been nights when I couldn’t wait for his bedtime to come. But any parent understands what I’m talking about. The day wore long and for whatever reason, things just didn’t go very well. He wasn’t a very good child and I wasn’t a very good parent. Yet, just when I thought I had it up to here with him, he looks up to me from his pillow and says, “I’m sorry, dad”.
Believe it or not, God has those kind of days with us. But when we look up and say, “Forgive me, Father,” his forgiveness for us, in how we have failed him, is as spontaneous as my forgiveness for Mark, when he fails to live up to my standards. “Forgive and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)
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