Spirit of Success

“Baseball begins and ends at home. Home is where the batter begins his pilgrimage, his journey around the bases in search of success. It is to home that he returns in triumph.”

- From Parables from the Diamond by P. Christopher & G. Dromgoole

Whether you are an avid baseball fan or just an occasional viewer, chances are you’ve seen the jubilant celebration of a player who crosses home plate after hitting the winning home run. It’s usually made even sweeter when teammates join in the celebration – making it, for that moment, a version of “home sweet home!”

In baseball, a successful journey begins and ends at “home.” The same could be said of life’s journey. We begin our life in a home, as did a young man Jesus spoke of in Luke 15: 11-32.

This young man had, by all accounts, a wonderful life at home – he had a family who loved him and he had all the advantages of a successful upbringing. But the young man decided he had “matured” to the point that he was smarter than his father. So the young man told his father that he wanted his inheritance money so he could go off to be on his own – that he could handle life more successfully on his own. His father loved the young son, so reluctantly gave him what he asked for.

The young son set off for what he thought were greener pastures, and he lived high on the hog, for a season. But the young son soon realized he had spent all his inheritance money and was forced to beg for work. He got a job on a pig farm – not living high on the hog any longer, but quite the opposite. The pigs he was tending were eating better than he was! His desperate situation got his attention. He realized the grass is not always greener on the other side.

The young son came to his senses, opened his eyes to his situation and decided, there’s no place like home! So the young son began his journey back home. It was a long journey, as he realized just how far away he had wandered. How would his father receive him?

The young son had a lot of time to think as he was returning home, so he began to develop what he would say to his father – including how he would apologize and admit his wrong. Little did the young son know that his father had never stopped hoping his young son would return. The father had kept watch every day, hoping to see his young son returning home. As the young son rounded the corner near his home, the father spotted him, and ran out to embrace him and welcome the young son back home! The young son began to confess to his father and ask his forgiveness. The father joyfully accepted him back and even had a huge celebration immediately prepared to welcome the young prodigal son back home!

We can each relate to the story of the prodigal son. Most of us have either walked some of it ourselves, or have raised a prodigal child. It is not a sin to have rebelled against our Heavenly Father – to have thought we knew better, that the grass was greener in other pastures. But it is sin – and just plain stupid – to realize you are living a life your Heavenly Father never intended you to live, and yet not return home to Him. Our Father is watching and waiting for your return with open arms. And if you were a prodigal in younger years (as I once was) and you have returned to our Heavenly Father, the best news is we still get one more great celebration when one day we each see our Heavenly Father in our eternal Home!

Then we will truly be safe at home!

The shopping, the decorating, the lights, the music, the food – all can be fantastic, or frustrating – depending on your understanding of the truth of Christmas. The wonderful, wise commentator, Paul Harvey, once told the following story:

“One raw winter night a man heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights, tossed some hay in a corner, and sprinkled a trail of saltine crackers to direct them to the barn. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, still hid in the darkness, afraid of him.

He tried various tactics: circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn, tossing cracker crumbs in the air toward them, retreating to his house to see if they’d flutter into the barn on their own. Nothing worked. He, a huge alien creature, had terrified them; the birds could not understand that he actually desired to help.

He withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning from a clear blue sky: If only I could become a bird – one of them – just for a moment. Then I wouldn’t frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety. At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He had grasped the whole principle of the Incarnation.

A man’s becoming a bird is nothing compared to God’s becoming a man. The concept of a sovereign being as big as the universe He created, confining Himself to a human body was – and is – too much for some people to believe.”

Are you frustrated by Christmas? Are you spending yet another year of ignoring the truth of Christmas? John wrote, “The Word (Christ) became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (John 1:14). The same God Who created heaven and earth is the same God Who loves you so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to provide the one and only way for you to enter heaven. No other way – only a perfect substitute for your (and my) imperfect life. The perfect Gift is waiting for you once again, this year at Christmas. Let this be the year you say yes to Jesus and accept the Truth of Christmas.

“A baby’s hands in Bethlehem
Were small and softly curled.
But held within their dimpled grasp
The hope of all the world.”

-Leslie Savage, quoted in Charles R. Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life

Merry Christmas!