Disqualified Bat
Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
When I was growing up all baseball bats were made of wood. One of the first lessons your coach taught you was how to hold your bat so you wouldn’t break it. When you held the bat out the label should be on top of the bat. If your label was on the side of the bat and you made contact with the pitched ball the chances of breaking the bat was almost 100%. Once your bat was cracked or broken then it was disqualified from further use. Today we have metal bats used from little league through college. Parents have been known to pay several hundred dollars on metal bats only to find out they can be damaged or broken just like the old wooden ones. When my son was 10, I got a good deal on one of those fancy metal bats. It seemed to work and he went on long hitting streak. It also became the bat of choice for his team mates. His team entered regional playoffs as undefeated favorites. That’s when blue, that’s what you call the umpire, came by before the game to inspect the bats. That’s when he discovered my son’s bat had a small hairline crack. The bat was disqualified.
You may believe that you are disqualified because of the abuse you have experienced from others. This abuse may have left you broken and believing you are disqualified from ever being worthy of love. You may believe and been told you are disqualified from being used by the Lord because of your past sins. Each wound we experience carries a message. When these messages are repeated they become themes. Repeated themes become part of our belief system by which we filter the current events in our lives. Whether these wounds come from others or self-inflicted results of our sinful rebellion, the process is the same. Have you come to believe you are disqualified and about as useless as a broken bat? David knew something about the wounds of others as well as his own self-inflicted ones. He also knew God’s heart and that he draws near to the brokenhearted and crushed spirit. It took time to believe that you are disqualified but maybe it’s time to learn to agree with the truth of Christ’s redemptive and restorative work. You can’t restore a broken bat but Christ’s love can and does restore the brokenhearted and crushed spirit.
Jonathan Jones, President and Founder of Perfect Hope Ministry
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