Making A Comeback

Baseball is the theme of our children’s church curriculum we recently started for the summer months at the church where I am children’s pastor.  The curriculum is a study based on the lives of the twelve disciples.  I am amazed at how God speaks to me through my preparations and search for material to make the lessons both interesting and relevant for the kids.

This week our study was about Peter—the “Comeback Kid”.  In the curriculum there was a brief write up about Dave Dravecky, a former pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, who had to give up pitching due to complications from a cancerous tumor in his pitching arm.

I went to youtube and found a video of an interview with Dave where he shared his testimony.  He shared about his desire to be a baseball player from the age of eight years old and his journey to finding himself a pitcher in Major League Baseball.  His life was a dream come true finding himself pitching in the World Series and having the “woman of his dreams” for a wife then finding he had cancer in the deltoid muscle of his pitching arm.

Dave made a baseball comeback though and found himself once again pitching in the major leagues even though he had been told that outside a miracle he would never pitch again.  One day while having lunch with teammate, Bob Knapper, Bob said to Dave that it was not the miracle of the comeback that was so important, but the miracle of his  salvation and what God was doing in providing a platform through major league baseball for him to share God’s love with those who were hurting,   

It was right after that Dave’s career ended when his arm broke while delivering a pitch and after two surgeries and staff infection, they had to remove part of his shoulder and pitching arm, but the true comeback for Dave was that he embraced the platform given to him through his painful trial and used it to bring glory to God and minister to those facing painful circumstances.

What a novel view of “miracle” Bob Knapper had, that the true miracle was what God did in Dave’s life about eight years previously through salvation and then presenting Dave with a platform to share his faith to an audience given to him through baseball.  

Same story with Bethany Hamilton, the young Hawaiian surfer girl who was given a platform to share her faith when a tiger shark attacked her and she faced the loss of her arm but came back to become a professional surfer.  Her faith has been given a platform through the movie “Soul Surfer”, the story of her faith journey after losing her arm, and through many interviews on national television as well as a devotional book she has written.

These aren’t exactly the kind of platforms we usually look for to step into, but God works mysteriously and usually through tough stuff.  The kind of faith it takes to fill these callings isn’t for the weak of faith, but it’s these kinds of circumstances that give authority to the words spoken from the “platforms” that have the power to truly minister.

It was extreme circumstances like these that give credence to the words of Paul when he writes “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong”.  2 Corinthians 12:9 & 10

There are a number of recorded errors on Peter recorded in the Gospels, but on the Day of Pentecost, Peter embraced the platform and raised his voice to share a powerful message resulting in three thousand accepting his message and being baptized--now that's a comeback.

So what is your “platform”?  Where has God given you a place to speak out of your personal difficulty to inspire others to have faith despite their circumstances.  Have you stepped up to the plate and used your voice to speak courage into people’s fears?  It doesn't have to be a public platform, but embrace the opportunities that present themselves to share how God has given you the grace to bear the trials life has thrown to you.

How has God broken through with His truth, love and grace into your crisis and given you something to share with others from the platform that he prepared for you?  Don’t miss out on the comeback!