One-Hit Wonder (Friday Devotional)

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

- Ecclesiastes 3:1

When Hoyt Wilhelm stepped up to the plate on April 23, 1952 for his first major league at-bat, nobody expected much. The rookie pitcher was known for his wily knuckleball, not his hitting ability. Like they did with most pitchers, fans simply hoped he wouldn’t embarrass himself—or the team. If he managed to draw a walk, they would have applauded.

But the 28-year old reliever had something bigger in mind. So when pitcher Dick Hoover threw a fastball down the middle of the plate, Wilhelm swung with all his might and belted a long fly ball to right field. The outfielder gave chase for a moment, but then stopped short, watching in dismay as the ball sailed over the fence. In his first major league at-bat, Hoyt Wilhelm had hit a home run.

Over a 21-year career, Wilhelm would distinguish himself as one of the game’s greatest relief pitchers, earning 8 All-Star nods, MVP votes in 4 different seasons, and ultimately a spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame. But in 432 at-bats, he would never hit another home run.

We don’t always get to choose when the good things in life—or the bad things—happen to us. Sometimes everything comes together in one glorious moment, other times even the smallest victories are scattered over weeks, months, even years. For all the control we try to assert on our lives, time is the one thing we can never quite get a firm grip on. The ebbs and flows of life are regularly beyond our authority.

The words of Ecclesiastes 3:1—“for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”—are quoted often to make this point, but the implication of the last two words is typically neglected. The timing of the big and small events which shape us, while often beyond our control, is well within God’s grasp. The seasons of our lives, as unpredictable as they sometimes seem to us, remain under heaven.

So for believers, our task is not to constantly seek new ways to exert control over life’s timing, but to entrust it to the God of heaven and earth. As convenient as it would be to have all the answers up front, faith means finding security in God instead of our own desires and plans. Sometimes that means a life full of victories, and sometimes it means your only home run comes in your first at-bat. But in God’s hands, even the strangest timing is the best timing.