BAUTISTA SHALL LEAD:

A Royal Pain: Following Kansas City's baseball team ain't easy … but it builds character and perseverance. (Collin Hansen, 03/02/2006, Christianity Today)

[D]edicated fans know they cannot in good conscience ditch their team during the valleys and fully celebrate the peaks that may come. Fans of the last two World Series champions—the Sox Red and White—celebrated with such gusto precisely because their teams hadn't won it all in nearly a century. My mind tells me I can stop caring and wait for the bandwagon some day, but my heart won't let me. The life of a dedicated fan requires loyalty, perseverance, and fortitude.

If this is true, being a fan somewhat resembles a relationship with God. Indeed, there is no character without perseverance (Rom. 5:3-4). In my own little sports world, I feel like the baseball Job. Like Job did with God, I yell at the Royals players, and I wish I had never grown up a Royals fan. My wife tells me to give up and turn off the game. My friends blame me, because I could have picked the Twins—the Royals are my own fault. I cry out, "A Royals fan I came from my mother's womb, and a Royals fan I will depart; the Lord giveth and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." I can only hope the Lord will giveth some day, as he eventually did with Job.

Their young pitching looks great, but their best young bats are another year or two away and by then they'll have lost the arms....

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2006 12:00 AM