Monday Morning Manna: God Had a Better Idea

Spring Training is underway. Opening Day is only a few days away. Baseball season is here again. Hope springs eternal. I’m not quite the fanatic as Rogers Hornsby who said, “People ask me what I do in the winter when there is no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” But I am close. It started when I was ten years old. Would have started earlier but back then we had no t-ball, coach-pitch, etc. Little League – Pirates, then Yankees, then National Bank of Commerce Giants, and I was hooked. Early on, I was a St. Louis Cardinal fan because we lived in Houston, where the Cardinal’s Texas League team, the Houston Buffaloes, played. When I was around ten, my soon-to-be favorite player came to our church and spoke to a group of Royal Ambassadors. I still have the 8×10 black and white picture with his own handwriting, “Good luck, Dan. Alvin Dark.” I also have every baseball card ever printed of his (except his 1948 rookie card – too expensive). He was known for quoting Romans 1:16 with an ad lib, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” then he added, “and to baseball players.” I asked God to let me be a professional baseball player like Alvin Dark. God had a better idea. What was your childhood dream, and did God have a better idea for you?

Dr. Dan Crawford, Senior Professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, is the WestCoast Baptist Association’s Spiritual Life & Leadership Mentor. Follow Dan on Twitter @DrDanRC and Facebook www.facebook.com/dan.crawford.