Does the picture above look familiar to any of you? It does if you are a Boston Red Sox fan. This small park is a replica of the famous Fenway Park in Boston, home of the equally famous Boston Red Sox. It is actually a field that was built in a town named Essex Jct., in the state of Vermont, and is used to play wiffle ball games. The residents of the area also hold large tournaments there. Can you imagine - wiffle ball tournaments (what has the world come to?) But, none the less, this picture just might have something to teach us about the relationship of our lives to eternity.
Growing up, many young people might have dreamed of playing in the big leagues, maybe even for the Red Sox. Hopefully not for the Evil Empire - the Yankees. By the way, it is a well-known fact that prayers from Yankee fans carry a Roger Maris asterisk when they fly up to heaven.
I don’t think I was the only one who harbored hopes of one day getting to the plate at Fenway. But whether it was baseball, ballet, music, politics, business or any other form of human endeavor, many of us dreamed of one day making it to the Big Leagues. We saw the time we spent both at play, and also doing the hard work to perfect a skill, as preparation for one day being able to do what we loved in the real world.
The truth is that what we spent so much time dreaming and working for when we were younger, is much like the time we must spend today preparing ourselves to be ready for the Big Leagues, or what we call eternity.
Understandably, we place a great deal of importance on the events of our current lives, and they occupy almost all our waking moments. Whether it is fulfilling our responsibilities as parents or employees, our recreational pursuits, our efforts at ministry or responding to the Lord’s call in our lives, these events and tasks take up the lion’s share of our time, even our prayer time. However, we must keep in mind that all of what we do now is simply preparation and training for how we will ultimately spend our eternity. Scripture gives us some advice on how to set priorities in this life.
“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2)
As important as so much of what we do in our lives may seem to us, it is all ‘small ball’ compared to what is playing out in our spiritual lives. We must begin to see all of what we are experiencing today not as an end in itself, but for what it really is, a mere wiffle ball game compared to eternity. Hopefully this thought process will bring about a couple of very beneficial effects.
First, we might actually begin to live by St. Paul’s counsel to never again experience anxiety.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
If even the trials of life are all small ball, let’s not get too anxious about the outcomes of the events of our lives. The difficulties, as trying as they can be at times, may just be designed to teach us how to be better players in the Big Leagues, where it really matters. Things like patience, faith, hope and courage are seldom perfected without adversity.
Secondly, we need to realize that if we are going to get better at the spiritual game and really prepare ourselves for what eternity will bring, we must ask the Coach for His advice on what we need to work on. If we want to move from the wiffle ball of daily life to the big leagues of the spiritual life, then we must be willing to ask how the very temporary details of our daily life can become a means of preparing us for eternity. We call this prayer.
Here is a simple thought for the next time we kneel to pray. Rather than asking the Lord for what it is we need Him to do for us or spending the majority of our prayer focused on the details of our earthly life…
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:8b)
Instead of taking all our prayer time to outline our desires and our plans and our hopes for ourselves and our loved ones, why not just say, “Lord, what do you need from me? What do you need me to do for you? How can I contribute more to your Kingdom?”
Let’s try not to guess at the answer, especially what the Lord might tell us we need to work on within ourselves, for we are often not capable of discerning this. Let’s try not to present a plan for how to improve our spiritual batting average or our fielding or how we can better contribute to the team. Let’s just ask the question and then listen in silence for as long as we can to see if we can hear His answer.
“Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
Asking the Lord for what we need, or even what our loved ones most need, is an admirable thing to do and we should never stop doing it. But asking the Lord what He needs from us - now that takes real courage. But if we can muster that courage, who knows, maybe we might just get a chance to stand at the plate in Fenway, or what in the spiritual life we call eternity.
Please take some time this week to pray that we all really do make it to the Big Leagues.
Copyright © 2025, Deacon Mark Danis