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When our son Jeremy was about seven years old, he joined a t-ball team for the first time. He donned his blue Yankees jersey and hat with pride. We went to all of his games, cheering him on with each new skill he learned. He even turned out to be a switch hitter—a huge shock for his rather nonathletic parents!
Everything was going fine until the second half of the season. I was standing behind the dugout, waiting for the inning change, when Jeremy ambled over to me and hit me with a fast ball of his own.
“Mom, I think I’m gonna retire.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll retire.” Where a seven-year-old got such nonchalance was beyond me. What, did he think he was just going to walk off the diamond and start endorsing cereal and sneakers?
Visions of Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own shouting “There’s no crying in baseball!” danced in my head. There weren’t any sobbing women here, but the sentiment fit, nonetheless.
“You can’t! There’s no retiring in t-ball!” I blurted.
I must have donned that ‘don’t mess with Mama’ look, because somehow, he ended up back on the field. I still don’t know whether his sudden desire to drop out was related to boredom, fatigue, or something else entirely, but it didn’t win out that day.
I guess I know how he felt. More days than not, I wake up in the morning with less than a full night’s sleep, a house that looks like it has been in a war zone, and a to-do list that reaches around the block—twice. Those are the days I want to say, “God, I’m done. There’s too much! I’m going back to bed!”
God doesn’t raise quitters.
We are never given a guarantee that we will enjoy what we are doing, or even feel we are suited to do whatever it is we are called to do. There will be days when we want to tell God, “I’m gonna retire!” It is then we need to remember the big picture. What we are guaranteed is God’s willingness to equip us for that to which He has called us. He gives us everything we need to finish the game.
In Acts 20:24, Luke wrote, “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.”*
We can’t retire now. There’s still time left on the clock. Let’s play ball!
*Scripture from the New Living Translation
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