sin and repentance

What Will People Remember?

Frank

I remember as a kid debating his “worth” with a friend. We were trading baseball cards and I needed his to complete my All Stars. But he wouldn’t give it up. “He’s the best hitter in the game, and one of the best all-time.” I didn’t believe it. I’m a National League guy myself, so the best hitter in the game was obviously Tony Gwynn. And as far as all-time? At that age, my knowledge began and ended with Ted Williams. So of course I figured fair value was one of my “doubles” like Jerry Hairston Sr. (respect the specs!)

But the numbers don’t lie. One of only four players to have hit 300 home runs, 3000 hits and hit for .300 average (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial being the others). He’s a Hall-of-Famer. He is the only player to have won batting titles (for best average) in three decades, and his best season is the closest anyone has come to .400 since Williams did it in 1941.

With that last one, if you’re a baseball fan you’ve figured out who I’m talking about- George Brett.

For the die-hard baseball fan, stats mean everything. They offer comparisons across generations and eras (no, I won’t get into steroids here) which means you can say George Brett and Ted Williams in the same sentence. (Or even George Brett and Hank Aaron, but that feels weird)

But ask a casual baseball fan about the legacy of George Brett and they are likely to remember this:

This happened 30 years ago; an outburst memorialized with an anniversary. I don’t even have to play the video. I’ve seen it so many times I know exactly how Brett looks as he storms out of the dugout. I know, because I see that face in the mirror sometimes. And sometimes I see it in my son.

I showed this video to my son not long ago after one of his epic temper tantrums. I told him, “here is one of the best players to ever play baseball, but all most people remember is this.” I continued with the fatherly pep-talk of he can be anything he wants to be in life, do anything he wants to do, but if he can’t control himself none of that will matter. All anyone will remember about him are his outbursts.

I think he took the lesson well. Of course, I don’t set a good example. My temper is probably my greatest vice.

There’s a story about a boy who struggles with his temper. His dad tells him to go pound a nail in the fence every time he gets angry, to take out his frustrations there. Over time the son grew tired of pounding nails into the stubborn old wood so one day he approached his father and handed him the hammer. “I’m done,” he told him. “Good, now go out and take out all the nails,” the father replied. “But dad, the fence will be filled with holes!” His father then explained how that’s what anger does. And no matter how much you try to fix it, it does damage that can not be so easily repaired. Anger leaves holes.

Yes, this lesson was for my son. But it was just as much for me.

“In your anger do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26)

Demons

Frank

When I share songs on my “Music Monday” series, it is usually to call us to think more deeply about a song’s meaning- asking what hits us deep down when listening to it, and what lessons can we apply to our daily lives. It is one thing to have a favorite song that you love to listen to, but what does it mean to you? We get in the habit of driving around with the radio blaring and it so easily becomes nothing more than background noise. We often don’t slow down to actually listen to what the song may be singing directly to our soul.

And this includes secular music. We need to recognize that the people we reach out to, those who are in need of the Gospel message, have worldviews shaped by their media- music, television, the internet. So when I share a song like last week’s, we need to consider the perspective of the singer/songwriter and think about how others may also relate.

Like last week’s “Good Man”, this song is another favorite of mine and expresses the need for redemption. It is a song about our personal demons. And the video reminds us that we all have our demons that we hide. But because of the Gospel of Jesus, those demons do not have to define who we are.

(as a complete aside, the advertisement that played for me prior to the YouTube video was a Chevrolet ad with John Legend singing “Made to Love”. Right when he sings “there must be a God because I saw you” the commercial zooms right in to a Chevy cruising down the street. Like I said, our worldviews are shaped by media- and we are always being sold something.)