Well, I am going to try something tonight that I’m excited about but at the same time makes me a little nervous. Last week one of our members at Phillips Street approached me after Wednesday night Bible class and told me he had volunteered to coach his son’s 7-8 year old baseball team and was looking for some help, asking if I would like to be an assistant coach. Letting him know that work responsibilities might hinder me at times I agreed and we have our first practice tonight. Someone might say, why are you so nervous about coaching 7-8 year olds in baseball? Well, a couple of reasons stand out in my mind. (1) I have never coached anybody in anything. This is a completely new experience for me and it makes me nervous. While I’ve played baseball before and did for years I have never tried to teach someone else how to do it. New experiences are typically accompanied with fear so it makes me a little nervous. And (2) I haven’t picked up a bat or glove since college, roughly seven or eight years ago. Since that time I have had major eye surgery that has affected my depth perception and peripheral vision significantly. What if I have trouble catching or hitting the ball? Sure a lot of my old skills (or lack thereof!) will probably come back over time, but what if those issues restrict me permanently?
Have I been a little melodramatic in my words above? Perhaps. Am I a little nervous about this new experience? Sure, but not as much as it sounds above. However, the drama with which I described my nerves above is the same with which many people look at spiritual decisions they need to make in life or chances they need to take. Sometimes they are decisions or chances that will make major changes in their lives, at other times the changes are not so great. But those changes can be and often are approached with a high degree of doubt. Will we succeed? Will our lives truly be better? Are we really making a big mistake? These are real fears that really matter to us. But we must remember that “we walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). This simply means that at times when we make decisions or take chances in life that sometimes we cannot always be assured of the temporary result. Man may reject us. Our friends may despise us. Our family may disown us. But our sight is set on a prize much greater than anything this old world has to offer. The assurance that God has offered His children makes such burdens a little easier to bear. Sometimes we just need to take a leap of faith through a veil of doubt!