The Sandlot…And Other Moments Like It

For the past thirty minutes, I have been sitting here watching (for the unknown number of times) the movie, The Sandlot. Great movie! So many memorable lines!

“You’re killing me Smalls!”
“You got it. Haul it up.”
“We got banned from the pool forever that day.”

In so many ways, it embodies the childhood that many people had or wish they’d had. Perhaps, it is the collective ideal childhood of us all. Little bits and pieces mashed together into something wonderful.

It is a coming of age story…kind of. The movie captures a short moment in time; a single summer in the life of boy whose life changed in ways that he dreaded. The changes forced him to confront his inadequacies. Moving to a new town. Making friends. Throwing a ball. Facing his fears.

Perhaps, that is what it captures for us; that moment when everything changed. Maybe you knew when it happened. Everything changed so much there was no way to avoid it. You knew it. Everybody knew it. A victory. A loss. A perceived failure. Life had changed, and it would never be the same again.

Maybe you had no idea that the course of your life had taken a new trajectory. You thought that day or year was like every other one around it, but it wasn’t. A new road was before you, and you had yet to see it. Only later did you realize it. Only later did you know what had really taken place.
What do we do with all of those changes? Whether or not we welcomed them, they are a reality. Like The Sandlot, that single moment in time altered everything else.

Here’s what I have done or at least wished I had done more often. Walk forward with some confidence. That sounds too simple, but you have to understand where that answer is rooted. As a believer in God’s goodness, then I simply start there. No, I don’t believe that God causes everything to happen in my life. God is not the cause of every outcome whether good or bad. He is so much beyond that. He is so much greater than that. He has created life in a way that freedom is granted to all. In spite of that truth, in spite of our freedom, His goodness still prevails.

When the course of my life alters beyond my will, I need to remember that it does not change past God’s ability to still be good to me.

There’s the root of walking with confidence; God’s goodness.