Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

• Mark 14:38

“Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

• Luke 22:46

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

• 1 Corinthians 10:13

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

• 1 Timothy 6:9

When you face the trials and tribulations of this world, we do not expect to face them at a church softball league game.

I saw a commercial where a recreation league baseball team needed a clutch hit and a baseball hall-of-famer got up to pinch hit.  The ball hit the scoreboard beyond the outfield fence.  Of course, this was just a joke.  Grown-ups do not play on little league fields.  But then maybe they might do so.

But no, for two years, I managed the church softball team.  For being one of the smallest churches in the league, we had maybe the third best team.  Our infield was one of the best and our pitcher got mostly infield grounders or fly balls to the outfield.  It was slow pitch, so it was hard to put a good spin on the ball.  With a full roster, I played catcher.  If we were short a person or two, I played either left or right field.  But as catcher, I could play around with the batters, shift an outfielder just to mess with the batter.  Mind games.  It worked; I would get the batters swing off balance quite often.

We mostly played in some empty fields around town or the school’s high school baseball field.  But we had some games in farmer’s fields, a pea patch (local rule of a ground rule double if he hit the ball into the gardener’s patch of peas), and all kinds of interesting places.

But when we went to the little community just north of town to play their Baptist church, they directed us to a little league field.  Since the fence was easily reached by adults hitting a softball, they had a couple of local rules.  It was a ground rule double if you hit the ball over the little league fence.  But there was a power line overhead to provide electricity to the lights for the field.  If you hit the ball over the electrical line, that was a home run.  For those who do not know about baseball or softball, a home run is a free trip around the bases and your team scores a run for the batter and anyone on base at the time.

Our team had some power hitters.  The centerfielder (or shortfielder), the shortstop, the first baseman, and the third baseman, could hit the ball a long way.  All we had to do was string a few ground rule doubles in a row and we could do a lot of scoring.  But those four guys became so tempted to try for a standard high fly ball.  They would normally get out in hitting it like that, but that electrical line was so tempting.  We went through the line-up (everyone on the team) twice with us singles hitters getting on base, but we could not score.  The power hitters were too tempted to hit a short home run, and they popped up to the infield instead.

I finally pulled the team into a huddle.  “Resist temptation, guys!  Small ball.  There are plenty of gaps to hit a single or get a double hitting the ball down the line.  Hit line drives!  Do what you normally do.  I think these guys are using their local rules to mess with our minds.  Resist temptation and play like you normally do.”

We rallied in the last two innings of the game to win by one run.

It’s funny.  You know how to play the game properly, and then someone tempts you with something that looks so easy to do, but you start trying to do something that you normally do not do and you simply forget how to play the game properly.

Temptations come in all sizes and temptations can even come at church events, like a church league softball game.

Be aware and know that God can give us the strength to resist temptation.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.