Dugout Theology

As I type this, the Dodgers are playing the Rays in Game Six of the World Series.

By the time you read it, you will know the outcome of the game.  This game is easy to watch because I am not invested in the outcome. I don’t even have the volume up. Last week? I was a wreck watching the Braves. I wouldn’t let anyone talk until the commercials. Why? I was invested in the outcome.  

I am addicted to outcomes. It doesn’t matter if I am watching, waiting, wanting, or sitting in mystery of any kind, I don’t like the feeling of not knowing an outcome. In many ways, watching baseball can be a metaphor for 2020.  This past week, we talked about Patience, and how one of the Greek words for patience is Hupomone, which means patience in circumstances. It is a patience inspired by hope. How do I watch something, wait for something, and do that well?

Hupomone.

What does that look like? Take this passage from Job.

8 But if I go to the east, He is not there;

   if I go to the west, I do not find Him.

9 When He is at work in the north, I do not see Him;

   when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of Him.

10 But He knows the way that I take;

   when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

Job 23:8-10

This passage is a bit dramatic for applying to sports, but that same pit in your stomach when you are waiting on God is what Job felt. Yet I would argue he had Hupomone.

I don’t know what you are waiting on right now. I don’t know what the outcome will be. I am waiting on and praying for a thousand things. With God, I can know that good will come from my waiting and wanting.

If you wait with hope, if you pray with hope in the uncertainty, even when you feel like God is not there no matter which way you go, in time you will come forth gold.

That promise is better than whatever you are praying for or waiting on. May it bring you hope.

The outcome is determined for those who wait on the Lord with hope. You will come forth gold. I pray that gives you hope today my friends.

Pastor Jared

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