Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: December 28th

"Hit'em where they ain't." I believe that old baseball adage is attributed to Casey Stengel, one of the winningest managers ever in the history of the game. However, he may not be the one who had the original concept. Paul Waner, who played baseball back in those halcyon "Golden Years" of baseball, was one of the greatest players of all time. For his career he amassed 3,152 hits and compiled a lifetime .333 batting average. When Waner talked hitting, people listened.

"Look, there are three outfielders," he once said. "Why hit it where they are? Shoot for the foul lines. If you miss, it's just a foul ball; if you get it in, it's a double." Sound advice from a man who evidently knew what he was saying. As a kid growing up in a little town of about 600 people in the Midwest I had the baseball bug. I also had heard what Waner had said and, even though I was barely big enough to pick up a bat at age seven, I decided that would be my object in hitting.

While watching the old "Home Run Derby" shows on TV I learned from other great players that the best hitters have quick bats. I spent time in my back yard trying to develop a quick bat. I would stand there swinging at imaginary pitch after imaginary pitch trying to see them come at me at ever increasing speeds. Each time my goal was to hit that pitch right down the left field foul line. I became good at it. Good enough that in my later years of little league and organized softball many teams over shifted to the left when I came up to bat.

Therein is the problem. If you only do it one way somebody is bound to catch on and make the changes necessary to stop you. So how do you live your life? Are you hittin' where they ain't or are you playing the entire field? Have you zeroed in on just one facet of living or are you familiar with several and are a well rounded individual? Over the years I learned to work the ball around the diamond with my hits. I became a tougher out. Recently I learned that being well rounded in life is an advantage, too.

Satan can only get us if he can entice us with the one thing we know or do best. That is our place of greatest confidence and it is in that place of greatest confidence that he can strike with his subtlety. That area is the one of our greatest desires and it is the devil's target zone. "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." James 1:14, 15 Let God through His Spirit and the Living Word lead you into all paths of righteousness.