I Don't Want to be an Analyst!

These are two of America's, apparently, finest baseball announcers. Or at least they are the best of those individuals that have been contracted out by the Fox Sports organization. There was a moment in the Top of the 8th inning in tonight's Game #2 of the 2009 World Series that Tim McCarver (the gentleman on the right) continued to rant about the fact that the Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel, didn't start the runners in a certain situation that may have posed the necessity of having the runners steal. The baseball strategy behind this suggests that perhaps Tim would be correct, however, there is a bigger lesson here to me.

When it comes right down to it, this analyst has an opinion. Bob Brenly always had an opinion about decisions that Lou Pinella made in Cubs games. And any other analyst always has an opinion about what a team should do. Unless we're talking about Steve Stone, in which case whatever he says always comes true and Ozzie Guillen should take notes, or learn how to tell the future. But the point is, in any case, there is always an analyst/announcer that is probably second-guessing or trying to give an alternative to whatever the coach/manager is deciding on the field.

But the lesson I take from this is the similar position that most of us take as Christians when looking at other people's lives and comparing them to our own. How many times have I looked at someone's life and said, "Man, that doesn't seem right at all. Why would they do it like that?" And then continue to judge, slander, or simply rip on that person's way of life or circumstance. Unless there is a "Steve Stone" out there that has it all together when it comes to calling what is going to happen next in the life of humans on this planet, I think we are all pretty short of deciding how someone should make decisions when we aren't even willing to get on the ground and help them.

Perhaps this has application in other areas of our lives? What about the man on the side of the road that has a sign, begging for money for his family to eat tonight. (This is where I begin to feel like a hypocrite.) I mean come on, we have all thought the same thing: "How pathetic is that. He probably just wants money for his next 5th of vodka to tide him over to the next one. He probably doesn't even have a family." I know I have. I know that I still do it all the time. Maybe I don't think about it directly, but in some way I have neglected my fellow man.

Maybe this thought is closer to our own homes. What about the family next door? I mean come on, if they would just mow their lawn one more time in a week we wouldn't have this problem; their house would look halfway decent. You know if Michael would just wear normal clothes, maybe he wouldn't get picked on. These are all situations that I am thinking of right now that I know I have either taken part in, been a catalyst of, or have seen represented.

So, how do we treat our fellow man? As Christians, do we just sit back, in our nice comfy homes with no problems because of what Jesus has done for us and make judgments about everyone else around us that have had life so much different than us?

This past Wednesday Night, I had the opportunity to interview a boy named... check that a 16 year old South African man (I say man, because he has represented more qualities of being a man at age 16 than I had ever attempted by age 21) named Mthobisi. Mthobisi is a regular guy that has to deal with hundreds, if not thousands of different variables in life, simply because he was born in South Africa. The most basic of variables, our place of birth, sets us apart and gives me the opportunity to live in a way that jades me from the truth that I need a God that can hold me up and puts Mthobisi in a place to believe that there couldn't possibly be a God that could hold him together, let alone hold him up.

I sit here tonight and wonder what more I can do, today, in my life, to stop being an analyst in my fancy booth (home), with my fancy microphone (job) and my nice looking suit (clothes) and say, "What more can I do to further His kingdom with what I have been given? How much more can the talents that I have been given be multiplied for His cause?"

I never want to be in the booth. I never want to comment on a life that I am unwilling to attempt to touch. I never want to restrict God's use of me due to my unwillingness to work with people.

I want to be on the field. I want to be with the people, struggling to live, struggling to live lives that portray Christ. I want to be the one that makes the risky calls and the Holy Spirit guided decisions because that is what Christ has empowered me with.