A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY

"The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ. ... God became man for no other purpose."

C. S. LEWIS

It was a beautiful night at Dodger Stadium. Loyal fans sporting their team apparel formed a patchwork of blue and white across the multi-level stands. Above, the stadium lights sparkled like diamonds against the near-black sky. Below, not a blade of grass was out of place on the baseball field. And the Dodgers were up by two. Everything seemed perfect.

I was sitting behind third base next to a preacher friend of mine named Ron. He had flown into town, and I was thankful to spend a few hours catching up with him while we watched America's Pastime. Sitting next to Ron was a twelve-year-old kid, whom I realized right away was completely blind.

To this day, that boy is one of the greatest pictures of faith I've ever seen.

The entire game he had his baseball glove on with his hand outstretched toward the field. His mother sat next to him, and during every play, she leaned over to the boy's ear and quietly explained what took place.

"That was a hit to right field."

"The pitcher just struck out the batter."

"That was a double play."

Throughout the entire game, the mother described every pitch and every play for her son. And throughout the entire game, the boy sat with his glove out as though he was going to catch a fly ball.

At about the fourth or fifth inning, something surprising happened. Just like that, a foul ball popped up and headed precisely in my direction! I looked up and I thought, "Man, this ball is coming straight at me!"

What happened next, for a moment, seemed extraordinary at least and miraculous at best. I don't know if it was the spin on the ball, the wind, or the Holy Spirit, but as that ball began its downward trajectory, it started to move away from me and toward the blind boy, who was sitting patiently with his baseball glove wide open.

When I saw the ball start to go toward him, my first thought was not that it might land in his glove. That wasn't even a possibility as far as I was concerned. My thought was, "That ball is gonna hit that boy in the head! It's gonna kill him!"

Thankfully, the baseball flew over his head, missing him by an inch, and landed in the row behind him. In an instant, four or five guys scrambled down on the floor, fighting for the baseball. During the scuffle, the ball rolled way down the aisle until a lady picked it up.

The guys were still fighting for it, so I said, "Guys, guys! She's got the ball over there!"

And they looked up and there's this woman, happy as a clam, with the baseball in her hand. She put the ball away and continued to watch the rest of the game.

The whole scene bothered me for some reason. In my opinion, the ball didn't end up with the right person. After a couple of innings went by, I leaned over to my preacher friend and said, "You know what? I'm going to go ask that lady if she'll give me the ball so I can give it to that kid."

Ron said, "No, no, no, let me ask her."

And I said, "No, no, no, no, let me ask her."

He said, "No, let me ask her."

"Okay," I relented.

As Ron stood up, I said, "Hey! Before you go, here's a twenty-dollar bill. If she won't give it to you, offer her that twenty bucks, and if you wanna give her twenty bucks of your own that'll be forty. I bet she'll give it to you for forty dollars."

I handed him my twenty and went upstairs to get a Coke. When I returned, my friend Ron was sitting there with a dejected look on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"She wouldn't give it to me," he replied.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well, I went over there," Ron began, "and I said, 'Ma'am, you see that kid over there? He's twelve years old. He's totally blind, and he's been sitting there the entire game with his baseball glove. Is there any way you would give me that baseball so I could go give it to that kid?' She said, 'No.'"

Ron continued, "So then I took out the forty dollars and I said, 'I'll give you forty dollars for that baseball.' And she said, 'Okay,' and she started to hand me the ball. But her boyfriend reached out and grabbed her hand and said, 'No. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to go to a Dodger game and get a foul ball. We're not giving it to the kid.'"

Now I know I'm a preacher, and preachers are supposed to have good thoughts about other people. But when Ron told me what happened, I did not have good thoughts.

I wanted to turn around and say to the couple, "Do you wanna know what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is? It is not going to a Dodger game and having a foul ball roll right over to you out of nowhere — and you just look down, pick it up, and take that baseball home. That is not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

I wanted to say, "A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is going to a Dodger game and having a foul ball roll right over to you out of nowhere, and you reach down and pick it up. Then you look over, and you see a 12-year-old kid who has never seen anything in his entire life, let alone a baseball — and yet he's sitting there in faith, believing that he's going to catch a fly ball. And you take that baseball and you go over there, and you stick it in that kid's glove and you say, 'Here you go, kid. Here's a baseball.' Now that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

A CLEARER VISION

What happened that night at Dodger Stadium is a remarkable picture of the Gospel and what we choose to do with it once we receive it. Many of us are just like that couple. We're sitting somewhere minding our own business, unconcerned and unaware of spiritual matters. And all of a sudden, God — who is loving beyond our wildest imagination — graciously places salvation in our hands. We weren't even anticipating it. We weren't cognizant of the fact that God was working behind the scenes, before the beginning of time, to prepare and provide a way for us to be saved.

Yet He sends Jesus to die on the cross. Christ is buried and resurrects on the third day, and once we put our faith and trust in Him, the Lord God Almighty gives us eternal life.

What do we do next with this incredible gift? Do we hand it to the next person who needs it, or do we hold onto it tightly like a brand-new foul ball at a Major League Baseball game? Are we so overcome with joy and gratitude that we can't help but share it with others, or do we keep it to ourselves and think, "I'm saved. Thank God I took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

But there are people all around us who are in need of this incomparable gift, too. There are people who are lonely and broken. There are people who are...