After many visits to the Louisville Slugger Museum and
Factory during our tenure in Louisville, KY we have quite a collection of the souvenir
mini bats that guests receive as they exit the factory portion of the tour. I
am not really sure we need all of these bats but I can see how they may prove
useful in the event of a home invasion as a source of self-defense. They are
good for whacking around a wadded up piece of paper or one of those little
bouncy balls you get for 25cents out of those vending machines out front in the
family restaurant down the street. They are also a source of fascination for my
22 month old. If one of them gets left down low where he can grab it the
situation can turn from cute to madness in a matter of seconds.
Here’s how it plays out:
The one year old spies the bat laying in the most
conspicuous place it could have been placed by an older someone in the house.
His eyes light up. He leaps like a bolt of lightning from a storm cloud and
grabs the bat with both hands. He holds it and examines it for a few minutes as
he marvels at the object he is holding. The two older children enter the room
and see him with the bat. They think it’s pretty cute. “Awww, mommy look, he’s fascinated
with the bat. Do you think he’ll like to play baseball when he grows up?” They
get down on his level and try to explain what he is holding and how to use it.
He doesn’t really care or understand but they have given him just enough
information about the bat. “You are supposed to swing it, like this bubby.”
Then the scene changes very quickly. “No, No bubby! Don’t hit sissy! No! Don’t
hit bubby! Mommy! AHHHHH! Run away!” There is an intervention by me, a removal
of the deadly weapon, and screaming by the one year old because he sure was
having fun smiling and swinging his new toy. Crisis averted and lesson learned
by the older ones about placing objects that may be used to cause blunt force
trauma out of the reach of their baby brother. Well, learned for a week or so
but that’s another blog post altogether.
I reflect on this and other situations like it that occur on
a fairly regular basis in my house and I wonder if we do things like this even
when we should be past it or know better as mature Christians? I am sure I have
been guilty of this in my youth as I was just beginning to pick up and marvel
at the Word. In my exuberance I may have unwittingly hurled a misused passage
or several in the direction of someone intending to show my skill but instead
inflicting hurt and damage that may have taken quite some time to recover from.
I am prayerful and hopeful that I have grown and am growing in knowledge and understanding
of God’s Word every day of my life but I know I still have a long way to go.
Until I reach the unreachable heights of total and complete
knowledge of the scriptures I have learned to be more careful with it. It’s not
just any old book that can be tossed around and picked apart by my own opinions
or used to prove some point I want to forcefully make in your face without
taking into consideration how it may impact the one to which it was delivered.
The contents of the Holy Bible are too powerful and meaningful to merely swing
them around wildly with no understanding of what they are, what they say, and
what they do to people.
The apostle Paul reminds the preacher Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-17
to remain rooted in his acquaintance with the “sacred writings, which are able
to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is
breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.” Timothy is further encouraged to “preach the
word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with
complete patience and teaching” in 2 Timothy 4:2.
The Bible is what God has spoken to this world that He
created. It is what He expects His people to go to and be acquainted with in
order to competently teach others and to be equipped to do His good work. It is
to be used to preach His word in many occasions for both encouraging and
correcting, for many different reasons, and is to be taught with patience. His
words are the source for what is right and what is wrong and the source of my
access to my Heavenly Father and the rest he offers to all of His children. Striving
to enter that rest comes with an understanding that God’s word will cause
change in a dramatic way in my life. “Let us therefore strive to enter that
rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of
God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the
division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts
and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all
are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. ”
(Hebrews 4:11-13). His word is alive and it has the ability and the right to
cut into my life, intrude on my thoughts, and inform how I should view the
world.
This is all very encouraging to me to stay faithful to His
powerful word but it is also something that causes me to be cautious with how I
deliver this message to people who may not know anything about this mighty
sword. This is where the tough part comes in. His word is a sword and I, as a
Christian, am called to wield it (Ephesians 6:10-20). Not only am I called to
carry this sword into the world I am supposed to carry it with the most unruly
and hardest to tame part of myself, my tongue. “No, human being can tame the
tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord
and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought
not to be so.” (James 3:8-10) I am now doubly convinced of the level of care I
should take with this message I am entrusted with.
My 22 month old was very happy swinging his bat around with
his limited information of how to use it but if, as he grows, he never learns
more about what it can actually do and only continues to swing it wildly he
will hurt himself and nearly everyone around him. Likewise, as a Christian I
had better understand the power of what God’s word contains and strive to get
it right as I carry it into the world. It is a sharp object after all. I want
to make sure I am wielding it in the right way so that it cuts away what it
should instead of hacking those who would receive it to bits hurting myself,
nearly everyone around me, and most importantly doing damage to how the world
views God in the process. Remember, Timothy was encouraged not only to preach
the word but to do so with patience. He was also told that the way to do this
was to use the very breath of God given to him in the sacred writings of
scripture to equip and train himself. I have the same responsibility today.
