The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Texas Rangers (Page 21 of 33)

Finding Rest in God’s Will

September 6, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In order to deflect attention away from my Cowboys-Giants prediction, I’m going straight to the Rangers this morning. Following last night’s win over the Royals, Texas is a season-high 26-games over .500, they have a five game lead over the A’s in the West and a 7-1/2 game cushion over the Halos. The Rangers are four games up on the Yankees for home field advantage throughout the AL playoffs. And if they win again in KC tonight, that’ll be six straight series the Rangers have won since that mid-August trip to New York. I know what the Rangers’ magic number is today; I’ve been watching it for the past couple of weeks. But I’m not going to post it here and start that countdown until it gets below 20. I don’t want to jinx anything. We’re close. But not yet.

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We serve a God great enough and powerful enough to question and doubt when we suffer bad things. He is big enough and sovereign enough to even get mad at when we see and experience all the violence and war, crime and disease, poverty and suffering in this world. If he’s to blame for not stopping all the evil and suffering — or, better said, if he’s responsible for not stopping it — then, yes, he is all powerful and all sovereign. Therefore, it is also true that this same God must be great enough and powerful enough, big enough and sovereign enough, to have reasons for allowing all the evil and suffering that we can’t understand.

We can’t have it both ways.

Timothy Keller quotes Elizabeth Elliot in his book King’s Cross: “God is God, and since he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in his will, and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”

I’ve heard it said before, God is God and I’m not. Oh, yeah. And the absolutely only safe place to be is in his eternal will. Now, his will is way beyond our human understanding. We don’t have a clue as to all the details, much less the big picture of what our sovereign God is doing in the everlasting scope of salvation.

But he is sovereign. He is faithful. And he is good.

And we can find rest in that. In the middle of the war and poverty, the sickness and death, the injustice and despair, we can find rest in his holy will.

Peace,

Allan

Salvaging a Game

August 18, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Whitney and I made it home from New York right at 6:00 last night, greeted the girls and gave them their shirts from the Empire State Building and the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe, and then immediately loaded everybody up for dinner at Ruby Tequila’s. The food in NYC was great and everything. Whitney and I enjoyed real New York style pizza at a street market in Battery Park, we ate stromboli between the World Trade Center and St. Paul’s Chapel in the financial district, and we savored flavorful Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and wonderful New York style hot dogs at Yankee Stadium. But we needed some Tex-Mex right away last night. And Ruby T’s delivered, as always, with those amazing Sunset Enchiladas.

It was a fabulous week in New York with the Whitster. We were disappointed upon arrival Monday evening to learn that the inside of the Statue of Liberty was closed until next year for renovation and the ESPN Zone in Times Square shut down in 2010. We were also disgusted at the way the Rangers played in Yankee Stadium. Until Thursday’s finale of the four game series, Texas had lost eight in a row in the four-year-old ballpark and eleven out of twelve. Tuesday night, the Rangers didn’t get a base hit until the seventh inning. If it weren’t for Josh Hamilton, they would have been totally blanked on Wednesday. Yuk. We went into Thursday’s afternoon affair having witnessed a total of just six Rangers hits, two horrible Rangers losses, an Ian Kinsler ejection, and Nick Swisher standing a little too long at the plate after his homerun. Oh, yeah, I also had to literally pull Whitney out of a confrontation after Wednesday’s game with four or five college-aged Yankees fans who were openly doubting Josh Hamilton’s sobriety and loudly questioning Nolan Ryan’s manhood. It wasn’t pretty.

So, while we had done lots of really cool things in NYC, the most important thing we flew there to witness and experience hadn’t happened. We saw Josh hit two amazingly breath-taking homers Wednesday. But Texas had lost both games.

 

 

 

Thankfully, Thursday was different.

The tone for a great game was set early when Whitney actually met Matt Harrison during the pre-game stretching, got his autograph, and took a pretty sweet picture with the Rangers’ star hurler. Texas wound up scoring ten runs in an exciting back and forth contest, we got to meet Mike Olt’s family from Connecticut, Derek Holland was decent, and we got out of there with a big win. We even ran into Russell Mihills and Cody and Jamie at the stadium in the middle of their father and sons trip to New York. (We made Jamie take the group pictures because he had purchased and was actually wearing a Yankees cap!)

Whitney and I learned to negotiate all the buses and trains, which gave us a tremendous sense of accomplishment every time we arrived at a destination. We met some really nice people from Texas and from New York. We learned a little more about the Yankees franchise history and culture. We reflected together about the evil and futility of violence and war. We talked about immigration and the role it played in shaping the United States and the love our God has for the alien. We expressed great shock everytime we found a place that sold Diet Dr Pepper. And we wore Rangers shirts and Rangers caps, from early in the morning until late at night, for five straight days.

Together. We did it together. What a blessing. I thank God for the wonderful week with my oldest daughter.

Peace,

Allan

Avoid the Sweep

August 16, 2012 / / 1 Comment

It’s been a rough three days in New York. A very rough three days for Whitney and me when you consider that we brought nothing but Rangers shirts and caps for this trip and our favorite team has done nothing but stink it up for us here in the Bronx. Every where we walk and ride, the Yankees faithful give us much good-natured grief. And that was pretty funny after the first two losses. Now, after last night, it’s just ridiculous.

We’re headed out this morning for the Empire State Building and then one more shot at the Evil Empire itself.

Go Rangers. Still.

Allan

Utterly Disproportionate to Who I Am

July 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

David Platt, the author of Radical and Radical Together and all the workbooks, study guides, and DVDs that go with it, is like most of us preachers and pastors. He, like us, is completely and totally unqualified for the task that’s been given him by our God. He’s overwhelmed  by the enormity of the challenge, disoriented by the eternal nature of his job, intimidated by the stakes. Yeah, me too! Sometimes it’s just too much!

Like us, Platt finds great comfort and strength in prayer. Like us, he knows that he’s in over his head with this pastoring thing. So, like us, he acknowledges this before God. And I really, really like his prayer:

“Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.”

In my more serious moments of reflection, I see very clearly how ill-suited for this job I really am. I’m still terrified to speak a word from God to our people. To dare to vocalize his eternal truths scares me. I’m truly intimidated by it. Walking into hospital rooms where people are hanging between life and death — they and their loved ones are paralyzed by fear, overcome with the uncertainty — and pretending to be able to comfort or encourage is crazy. I’m not capeable. I’m definitely going to mess that up every time. Telling people what God wants for thier lives when my own life can be horribly out of whack; attempting to teach people who’ve been studying and teaching the Word of God much longer than me; planning and promoting events that are supposed to inspire faith and good works; writing and delivering sermons that are supposed to compel; and, all the while, rationalizing and justifying the inconsistencies in my own life that betray my inadequacies for this position.

“Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.”

I do know that our gracious God specializes in the weak. He’s an expert in dealing with the unqualified. He chooses the last one you’d expect and then works to do the totally unexpected. It’s truly mind-blowing.

If it’s up to me, my congregation dies. My sermons are boring. The sick people I visit are discouraged. Nobody is saved. And I am a terrible waste of everybody’s time. If it’s up to me and my own strengths and talents and gifts and abilities, we’re all in trouble. I can’t do this. I know it. And everybody who’s ever met me knows it.

The Spirit of God must give me every word, he must provide every ounce of strength, he must come up with every nugget of wisdom and drop of inspiration if this is going to work. He must guide my every move. He has to steer me through every hour. He has to show up every single time. I know it. And the One who created me knows it.

“Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.”

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I’ve generally been pretty luke warm about Bud Selig’s crazy rule that gives home field advantage in the World Series to the league that wins the All-Star Game. I’ve always been negative about it — come on, what commissioner in his right mind awards a competitive advantage in his championship event based on the outcome of an exhibition game played three months earlier?!? — but it never affected me personally because my Rangers were never even close to being impacted. It has never made sense for random players on tricked-up rosters to determine home field advantage in the World Series. Players on teams that had already been eliminated from contention and had no stake in the outcome were determining home field for the World Series. Yes, it’s that crazy. But we never talked it too much because it never hurt the Rangers. Or particularly helped them. The American League won the Mid-Summer Classic thirteen straight years and I always joked, “Good, now the Rangers will have home field if they win the pennant.” Ha-ha.

When the NL broke the streak in 2010, I didn’t pay any attention. When the Rangers beat the Yankees three months later to qualify for the first World Series in club history, suddenly it mattered. During last year’s All-Star game, I paid close attention. When the Senior Circuit won it 5-1, I cringed. It’s not fair. When the St. Louis Cardinals received home field advantage in the World Series — a wild card that didn’t even win its own division over the division-winning Rangers who had six more regular season wins than the Cards— I was livid. And, yeah, it mattered. Game Six at Busch mattered. Harrison starting Game Seven in St. Louis instead of the Ballpark in Arlington mattered. The truth is that in the past nine straight Game Sevens in the World Series, the home team has won all nine times. Look it up. It matters a great deal.

The good news is that Texas is sending a club record seven players to the All-Star game in KC next week, quite possibly eight if Yu Darvish wins the fan voting. Ron Washington will manage with his staff beside him on the bench. Matt Harrison, Major League Baseball pitcher of the month for June, should be the starter and Mike Napoli will be the other half of the battery. Josh Hamilton will play center and Adrian Beltre will be stationed at the hot corner. Elvis and Kinsler will play and Joe Nathan will be called upon to close it out. They can do something about this. They can determine their own destiny.

The American League has scored a grand total of two runs in their past two All-Star Game losses. That can’t happen next Tuesday.

This current Rangers team racked up 50 wins before July. They’re not just winning games, they’re blowing people out. And if Holland and Feliz and Colby and Ogando get healthy, the Rangers are the World Series favorites again.

I’d have to do a lot more research on this — maybe somebody can help me — but this may be the first time since Selig’s rule, with the manager and coaching staff and eight players from a true contender, that the World Series participants actually determine in the All-Star game where they themselves play in October.

Peace,

Allan

Running with Regular Folks

May 31, 2012 / / 2 Comments

By the time Whitney and I got in the truck after Bible class last night and turned on the radio, the Rangers were down 17-0 to the M’s. We started praying for a quick score and an onside kick.

Good grief.

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The writer of Hebrews walks us through the hallowed Faith Ring of Honor in chapter eleven, biblical hero by biblical hero. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David. By their faith, the writer makes clear, these people conquered kingdoms, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and “gained what was promised.”

Then the author has the audacity to commend disciples of Jesus — the Church, you, me! — to run the race the same way these heroes did.

Excuse me?

You want me to be like Abraham? You want me to be like Moses? Are you kidding? Why don’t you just set me up for a lifetime of cruel disappointment? I can never live up to that. Who can?

Before we check the “NA” box on this one, we might want to consider one thing: as Christians, we are extraordinary, we are super, we are heroes; not because of anything we’ve done or can do, but because of what God through Christ is doing in us and with us.

When we live by faith, we bear witness to God and God bears witness to us. Our lives become proof that faith in God works. Despite our weaknesses and shortcomings. Probably precisely because of our weaknesses and shortcomings.

We’re not perfect. We’ll never be perfect this side of glory. But our Father is working to make us perfect, we are “being saved,” in the everyday middle of running the race in faith.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.” ~Hebrews 12:2

Peace,

Allan

Abandon Our Claim To Exclusive Truth

May 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Thanks so much to Jim Sundberg for the fabulous work he did for us at the Great Cities Missions dinner and fundraiser Friday night at the Ballpark in Arlington. The Rangers great showed up with a whole bunch of autographed baseballs and then auctioned them off with great energy and flair. Baseballs signed by perennial All-Stars like Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, and Nelson Cruz each went for between $500 – $750. But the big money item was a ball autographed by both Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux that brought a whopping $1,600! A night at a Rangers game beats a boring old fundraising banquet any time. But throw in Jim Sundberg auctioning off autographed baseballs and it becomes a spectacular event to never forget. As a kid in Dallas, Sunny was always my all-time favorite Texas Ranger. That spot has now been solidified forever. Thanks, Jim.

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I hesitated to review Leroy Garrett’s book “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” chapter by chapter in this space for several reasons. Chief among them is the fact that Garrett is a bit of a lightning rod in our faith heritage. His books and articles challenging us, pushing us, chastising us, have traditionally had polarizing effects. And he can come across to some as overly critical, overly cynical, and too harsh. But, ultimately, I believe the issues he raises in this compilation of essays and the conversations they provoke are way too important. It’s critical. We need to have these conversations.

Garrett’s next suggestion for saving the Churches of Christ for vital Kingdom work in the future is another angle on what is by now a familiar refrain:

We can believe we are right without having to believe everyone else is wrong.

Again, this idea that we in the Churches of Christ believe we are the only ones going to heaven dies hard. I understand not everybody was brought up to believe this. I know not every Church of Christ preacher and elder has always made this claim. But it is the way I was raised. In fact, recent conversations in my own extended family have confirmed that this position is still held quite firmly in many of our churches. I’m regularly asked by sincere and well-meaning Church of Christ brothers and sisters, “If we’re no better than the other churches, then why should we even exist?”

The thinking goes that if we surrender our claim to exclusive truth we forfeit our right to exist. If we are right — and we do believe we are — then everyone else must be wrong. If we are true and faithful Christians, then those who are different from us are not.

It is one thing for us to believe in absolute truth, which we all do since we believe in God, but it is something much different for us to presume that we have an absolute understanding of that truth. Truth is absolute; our grasp of truth is relative. One sobering truth speaks to that: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12). So, we can surrender our claim to exclusive truth (only we have all the truth) and still believe in absolute truth (which is a reality that is beyond our perfect understanding).

On the face of it, we are forced to conclude that we must abandon our claim to exclusive truth in order to be an authentic people. We have no right to exist believing that we and we only have the truth. We must admit that we are both fallible and finite, that we, like everyone else, are wrong about some things and ignorant about other things.

And yet we can believe, in common with all Christians, that we have found many precious truths that we live for and would die for.

I’m reminded of those powerful passages in 1 Corinthians 8-10 that speak to our so-called knowledge. These passages outline very clearly the mindset and attitude we are to have as we consider our own understandings of the Gospel as they relate to beliefs and practices:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (8:1-2)

“We put up with anything rather than hinder the Gospel of Christ.” (9:12)

“I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” (9:19)

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (9:22)

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” (10:24)

A claim that we alone know everything there is to know about the will of God and that we alone have everything figured out and that we alone are doing everything right, or at least better and more faithfully than everyone else, goes completely counter to the above passages in 1 Corinthians and, honestly, against the whole of Scripture and the Spirit of Christ.

And, again, I’ll go back to our misunderstanding and misapplication of grace. If we ever actually comprehend that our righteous relationship with God is not a matter of our “rightness” or our worship practices or our baptism or communion theology, but a matter of surrendering to God’s merciful love and grace, we will quickly abandon our exclusive claim to salvation truth. Instead, we will praise God for his boundless mercy. We will then claim only to be a people who are continually seeking the truth as it’s revealed in Jesus. And we’ll eagerly join all those disciples of other traditions and different heritage as equals in seeking and understanding that truth together.

Peace,

Allan

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