the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Daily Devotionals
Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
The movie "Little Big League" is a wonderful story about an eleven year old who does the improbable. He inherits a major league baseball team from his grandfather, who suddenly passes away with no warning. The boy throws himself into the situation to the point where he fires the current manager and hires himself to replace him.
Through all of this is wound the story of the relationship he has with his widowed mother. He finds out that being a manager of a big league team is not just about knowing baseball, which he knows better than most people around him. Its not necessarily about handling baseball players three times his age, which he does with amazing maturity.
He finds that managing a big league team is about maturity, the fact his mother struggled with when he first decided to be the manager. For her, he was growing up too quickly. He was cast into instant adulthood with his interjection into a world of men and their egos and problems. In the course of things it got the best of him. He began to self-destruct and his life became a tortuous ordeal. Suddenly he felt like a little boy lost in a place he had never been. But he had a parent to help him. After all, he was a child.
When Jesus was presented infants to bless, His disciples debunked the idea. But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." Luke 18:16, 17 Jesus understood something important. No one was going to come into God's kingdom fully prepared to handle every situation.
A man named Nicodemus came to Jesus by night seeking knowledge of the kingdom of God. Jesus told him plainly, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3 Entry into the kingdom is through being born into it. We all start as babies. We struggle with who and what we are and want our way many times. In God's eyes we are children. Hopefully, in our eyes, He is our Father.
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' Copyright 2010 © Tom Kelley. 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to https://www.studylight.org/ 2) 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
