First person: Aimlessly twirling in the outfield might leave us out of some cool God moments

Seven-year-old J dances to the beat of her own drum — and she proved it even more during her city baseball league’s opening game in early May.

I can’t really blame her though. For someone as spunky as she is, it must be beyond difficult to stand way out in right field with no action for what seems like an eternity while a constant flow of confusion and minimal movement takes place inside the diamond.

Watching her small sways shift to larger, more choregraphed dance moves with an occasional twirl, I smiled wondering what narrative flowed through her mind.

Wandering mind

Where had she transported herself as she worked hard to remain disciplined enough to protect her slice of the field?

The rhythm of that moment might have allowed her to dream a little or process something going on in her world.

While joining the team definitely forces a bit of growth in patience, contentment and focus, it doesn’t prevent her mind from wandering off to a faraway place.

My mind wanders off in some situations too, especially when I’m juggling several pending tasks or unresolved issues.

If someone talks around a subject longer than needed or writes too much content without getting to the point quickly, then it takes a good bit of discipline to remain fully in the moment.

Think about how hard it is to stay focused for those of us who didn’t grow up in a digitally saturated world. It must be near impossible for those who’ve only known such an
existence.

So, how can we stay truly engaged with each other, build genuine community and fully grasp the needs and concerns of others while battling the never-ending distractions garnering so many people’s attention?

How do we retrain (or in some cases train for the first time) ourselves to fully listen and ask the types of questions that lead to understanding?

How do we gain the confidence and poise needed to communicate clearly our needs while recognizing everyone carries some type of pain or difficultly?

Beautiful model

Our friend Willie Brunetti advocates for helping each other out this way: “Here’s what I need …, and here’s what I can do … .”

It’s a beautiful model watching families, teams, congregations and communities in general come together by sharing their gifts, talents, strengths and abilities.

When we all bring our superpower to the table to share and, at the same time, be willing to accept the assistance of another’s superpower, wow — some really amazing results will surface.

And if we do it in accordance with God’s guidance and join Him where He is working, then I’m not sure we can contain the stories that will be told about where and how God is working. It truly will be more than we can ask or imagine, like what is referenced in Ephesians 3:20.

But back to focusing and staying in the moment — why does it matter for those of us called to love God, enjoy Him and share Him with the world around us?

It would be easy to convince ourselves that attending church regularly, serving in a few roles to keep the routine church life rolling along and even sharing Scripture here and there with others is enough.

We might even be disciplined enough to sincerely pray for needs on the prayer list and study the Word consistently.

But if we ignore the deep cuts and intense pain flowing through so many in our communities — and many times behind the smiling faces sitting on our pews — then we are much like the spunky 7-year-old twirling in the outfield unaware of what’s happening in the infield.

We might easily end up so caught up in our thoughts, concerns and daily preferences that we totally miss out on assisting a teammate in need of mentoring, encouragement or support.

And we will likely never know the God story we won’t get to tell.