Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.  

I hope you guys aren’t getting tired of it just being me posting throughout the summer. Such is the natural course of a Bereans’ summer I suppose; the profs on here give a 110% throughout the semester, so I think we can afford them this respite. As such, I guess that makes me the summer bean-counter; someone has to keep the lights on around here. We’ll get back to questions next week, but I wanted to share a story about duty and softball that I experienced last week, and I hope is useful for all of you.

Last Wednesday, our work softball team (of which I am a member) was playing a game, and I had told the captain that I would be there. I had made the commitment to play about a week in advance, but, as gameday drew nearer, I slowly realized that I didn’t have much desire to play in this game, a realization that became especially apparent on the day of. The weather had been threatening rain at worst and a generally muggy slog at best, our numbers were few, and two good friends of mine had invited me over for a night of merriment which was bound to be more enjoyable. You know that feeling you get when you commit to something far in advance only to feel later that you’ve made a grave mistake? Here we had a textbook example in the making.

Under the circumstances, I doubt anyone would have said anything had I simply decided to skip, but this particular time, I had the words of Christ bouncing around my head for some reason, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” “Oh very well then,” said I, “I’ll go play softball. What’s the worse that could happen?” So, I packed my gear, picked up a friend who wanted to come watch, and headed off for West Potomac Park with the same enthusiasm I usually reserve for root canals and DMV visits.

The game was a disaster in every respect. Things got off to an inauspicious start when the opposing team arrived just early enough to avoid forfeiting but late enough to inconvenience our own impeccably punctual squad. Things never improved on the field either as our opponents single and doubled us to death with volley after volley of preposterously and perfectly placed hits, not that their precision would have mattered given the way our defense played. On the first play, our traditionally reliable third baseman overthrew first by a mile, costing us two runs. A little nubber of a hit and a surefire out in the fourth inning scooted by as our catcher and pitcher both ran for the ball and deferred to the other to pick it up, allowing all the runners to advance. Redemption was nowhere to be found on offense as our opponents deployed a shift seemingly based on divine foreknowledge to stop our every chance of building offensive momentum. Even a screaming line drive from our center-fielder was for naught as the outfielder made a Willie Mays-styled over the back catch to rob us and stun everyone. And, to add a personal touch to the injury, I spent most of the game in observation mode, the coach having forgotten to put me into the batting lineup and fielding me only once late in the game. “Why, oh why, did I come here,” I thought again and again.

The game ended, mercifully, in the 7th inning, and we dispersed from West Potomac to lick our wounds and salt our speech. For our part, my friend and I scooted off for Buffalo Wild Wings through heavy traffic to drown our sorrows in saucy goodness, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of regret for having gone to game. “Why, when I didn’t even play and could have just as easily gone to be with other friends, did I show up? I feel like I wasted my evening,” I thought. Worse yet, my friend had grown quiet and unresponsive, which I took at the time to mean boredom. “Oh great,” I thought, “now he’s realizing what a dumpster fire of a night this has been. Chalk one up for boring my friends and wasting time.” But, for many who’ve had those same thoughts in similar circumstances, you already know the punchline of the story. Ultimately, it wasn’t boredom in my friend’s eyes; it was a heavy heart that was in desperate need of direction. For an hour and a half after my near-sighted musings, we talked as he spilled his guts on a life-altering matter that had been plaguing him for weeks. “No, no, no…chalk one up for duty,” I said to myself after dropping him off at his house that night.

I don’t recount this tale for bragging rights. Truth be told, apart from the little voice reminding me of Christ’s words (one might be so bold as to refer to the little voice as “Him”), I would have dropped the game like a hot iron and opted for more amusing options. Many of us, myself included, tend to think of faithfulness and loyalty to Christ in the macro. Share the gospel with the hardened cynic and win him to Christ; stand boldly under brutal persecution, do something heroic for the cause of Christ. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with those things, but how often do many of us realistically have those chances for grandeur? Not often, I’d wager. Let’s be honest, most of life is fairly droll and humdrum and palpably plebian. Take a survey of most Christians to see what they think faithfulness means, and you’ll probably get some very spiritual-sounding answers. Even an answer such as, “honor your commitments” (a fitting category for this story) tends to carry some presumption of vastness with it. There is an all too real disconnect between what we think faithfulness should look like and its actual manifestations.

To be frank, following Christ, on this side of eternity at least, is often a thankless task. I was blessed enough to see immediately the effects of obedience in something so menial as obeying the “yes be yes” command for a softball game. Most of the time, we will not see those effects. Yet, this is a large part of what our Lord has called us to — not just the heroic but also the pedantic, not just isolated instances of great valor but also the long, inclined slope of virtue, not just the flash of transfiguration but also the protracted road of a thousand imperceptible steps in the renewing of our minds and the changing of our hearts. Each act of obedience or disobedience, therefore, is one more ripple in the cosmos with consequences far beyond what we can see. It makes the call to faithfulness that much more daunting and sobering.

A few years back, I was at an economics conference listening to the Christian contingent answer some questions, and one presenter made a strikingly simple, yet honest statement, “At the end of the day, there’s a certain measure of just sucking it up in the Christian walk.” Preach, brother. Some of us are abounding in joy in serving our God; others are just sucking it up as we trudge along; many are at other points in their race. Wherever you find yourself, remember your duty and call to Christ in all you do, recalling as C.S Lewis did that if just the will to walk is there, He is pleased even with our stumbles. From one tottering fool for Christ to my brothers and sisters, a very happy Monday to you and may we all run the race that is set before us with duty and excellence.