Playing Catch With the Wall!

Today as I was driving out of my neighborhood, I spotted one of the neighborhood kids down the street throwing the ball against his wall and playing catch. Driving slowly, since our neighborhood is filled with kids, I was able to see him throw the ball a couple of times and as soon as the ball left his hand he crouched and was “baseball ready.”  He would catch the ball, throw it, spring to a crouch, and get ready to catch the ball. As he saw me approach he stepped onto the curb waved and I rolled down the window and yelled, “Hey, good practice.”

What struck me was that this kid was out early practicing his sport, and I was on the way to church to facilitate a Bible study and how the Bible study participants were just like this kid. They were getting ready to practice their faith. They were doing all the readings and meeting together, “a throwing of the ball,” so that they could catch the ball when it returned to them, in the form of God responding. In catch against the wall, catching the ball that comes back is never the ball you threw, the ball comes back changed. The ball that our neighborhood kid threw is change through the laws of physics. The “ball” that we throw, in study and in small groups, comes back to us in how God through our study changes us. The back and forth of throwing the ball and catching the ball, studying the word of God and receiving the word of God, makes us better followers of Christ, just as the practice of a boy playing catch with a wall makes him a better ball player.

A Disciples Path Study starts this Sunday at noon, it is never to late to get out and practice your faith.