Putting First Things First (Friday Devotional)

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

- Matthew 6:33

When Tyler police and paramedics reported to the home of an elderly woman in November 2017, they knew she needed to go to the hospital as soon as possible. Though she didn’t seem to have any life-threatening injuries, she was too weak to stand up and had in fact been scooting around the floor for hours by the time they arrived. They weren’t sure exactly what was wrong, but they knew they couldn’t leave her until she saw a doctor.

But when they urged the woman to go to the hospital, she refused and offered a different solution. “All I want is a Big Red to drink and I will be fine,” she told them matter-of-factly. When the first responders tried to tell her medical attention was more important, she insisted otherwise. No Big Red, no hospital. Finally one of the paramedics made a deal with her: if she would accompany them to the hospital, he’d buy her a drink himself and bring it to her room at the hospital. She agreed.

It’s easy to smile at the misdirected priorities of that woman in Tyler, but we tend to do the same thing spiritually, putting a premium on what we think matters most while missing what is truly vital. We ask God to bless our priorities instead of aligning ourselves with His. We pray for blessings and then forget to be blessings. We give our time to the causes and the activities we value most without stopping to wonder which ones God thinks are most important.

Jesus told us where to direct our energies and what to prioritize above all else: “seek ye first the kingdom of God.” He followed that command all the way to the cross, doing God’s will even at the greatest possible cost, and as his disciples we are called to do the same. Our mission is not personal gain or private satisfaction, but to glorify God and share His gospel with the world.

We all have goals, plans, and dreams, and God doesn’t necessarily call you to cast those aside—just to remember whose plans matter most. God has uniquely gifted you to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. What could be more important than that?

The Old Ball Game

Yesterday afternoon, sunshine and restlessness summoned me and Andrew to Waco’s Cameron Park for a couple hours. There was swinging and sliding, running and roughhousing, all the typical joys of a day at the park. But when the time came for a water break, we got a treat that is sticking with me on this Opening Day of baseball season.

On a grassy field near the playground, seven kids—six boys and one girl; five white, one black, and one Latino, all 10 years old or so—were playing an old-fashioned pickup baseball game.

Home plate was an oak tree, first base the duffle bag they’d brought their gloves in. Second was, as best I can tell, invisible and understood, and third was an empty water bottle. Everyone shared the same aluminum bat, and they rotated through three balls, which they had to constantly chase afterwards since there weren’t enough fielders to waste one on a catcher. No one wore batting gloves, but they all shared the same purple batting helmet, which fit snugly for some and was a couple sizes too big for others.

The kids’ moms sat at a picnic table a hundred yards away, chatting together and glancing over only occasionally. A black Labrador that belonged to the pitcher alternated between sitting in the shade of the oak tree and chasing foul balls.

The second baseman/shortstop/center fielder chanted before every pitch, “Pitcher’s got a big butt; pitcher’s got a big butt,” loud enough to draw laughs from his teammates but restrained enough that his mom wouldn’t hear him from the picnic table. The runner on first replied with words of encouragement for his hurler: “C’mon, throw him the high heat!”

The pitcher wound up with a high leg kick like Nolan Ryan, the batter swung with all his might like Babe Ruth. And when by some miracle bat met ball, the grassy field was a flurry of activity, with the first baseman leaving his post to chase down the ball, the runner on second racing around third, and the pitcher headed home to tag the runner out in the unlikely event his first baseman/rightfielder got the ball to her in time.

And then a few minutes later, when the pitcher’s mom told them that she (and the bat) needed to pick little brother up from soccer practice, the game abruptly ended, with the remaining six kids racing to the playground for whatever time was left. I don’t know who won or lost, but it didn’t seem to matter much to them as they took turns on the monkey bars.

It’s Opening Day for the 2019 baseball season—Max Scherzer squares off against Jacob DeGrom in D.C., the Red Sox start their title defense in Seattle, and Mike Trout, Manny Machado, and Bryce Harper look to justify their massive new contracts with some fireworks. And of course, in Arlington, the Rangers begin their goodbye to the red brick temple that they’ve called home for 25 years.

I’m sure there will be some great games today and throughout the season. But it’s hard to imagine a better, purer, more joyful game than the one I saw yesterday: just kids playing the old ball game.

Happy Opening Day, everybody. Play ball!

Training for Tomorrow (Friday Devotional)

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

2 Timothy 4:2

For a baseball fan, spring training is like baseball Disney World. Every player, from the All-Star to the AA benchwarmer, is in uniform. Tickets to exhibition games are cheaper than those for the regular season. For autograph seekers, players are accessible and typically happy to oblige anyone who asks (especially kids). And most of all, there’s an atmosphere of newness and optimism that pervades the whole enterprise—during spring training, even perennial losers are hopeful that this could be the year.

But for the players, spring training is work. While grateful for the chance to get out on the field with their teammates and play the game they love, your average big leaguer (especially the veteran who’s been reporting to Arizona and Florida every March for a decade) talks about spring training not in the glowing, sentimental vocabulary of a fan, but the matter-of-fact terms of an employee. For them, spring training means sunshine and green grass and possibility, but it also means early mornings of film study, stretches, and drills, followed by an obligatory afternoon game that doesn’t count for anything. For a baseball player, spring training isn’t a time to dream about tomorrow, it’s a time to sharpen your skills so you’ll be ready when tomorrow comes.

For Christians, God has commissioned us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the responsibility of every believer to bear witness to His grace with both words and actions, and to make His glory known to the world. Starting with his first disciples, Jesus calls all those who follow him to become “fishers of men.”

But sometimes when we talk about this responsibility, we talk about it more like fans than workers. We dream about the possibilities of evangelism and we hope for brighter days for the church…but then we adopt the posture of spectators instead of players, cheering on the pros while we watch from the bleachers. We’re excited to be part of the effort, but aren’t sure we’re qualified or ready to put forth any effort ourselves.

In 2 Timothy 4:2, believers are called upon to be ready “in season and out of season” to share the gospel. Knowing and telling others about Christ isn’t something confined to one time or one group of people, it’s something in which we all need to participate. And that means sharpening your spiritual ‘skills’ on a regular basis—staying in the Word, praying regularly and intentionally, and being a part of a local church. Sharing the gospel isn’t just the pastor’s job…it’s your job too! So hop up from your seat and head down to the field—there are dreams to be dreamed, but there’s also work to be done.

10 Things I Learned At Spring Training

This past week, my Dad and I made the trek to the greater Phoenix area to watch some Major League Baseball spring training games. We’ve made this trip half a dozen times now and always enjoy the sunshine, baseball, and relaxation.

This year, however, we did something different. This year, we brought my two-year old son Andrew along for the ride…and, notably, didn’t bring our wives, who vacationed together in Rhode Island instead. The result was a spring training trip with some glorious memories and serious struggles. I learned a lot on the trip. So allow me to share, Buzzfeed-style, the top 10 things I learned:

1.     Naps are important.

You may think I mean for toddlers, and I do. But when you’ve been keeping up with a toddler for 9 hours straight (as we did on the longest day of the trip), don’t underestimate the restorative powers an hour in bed can have on an adult too.

2.     Toilets that automatically flush are the worst.

When you’re a toddler who’s only recently finished potty training, routine is everything. You know what disrupts your routine and makes you really upset? Not getting to flush your teetee at the end of the process. You know what REALLY disrupts your process? Having the toilet violently flush while you’re still doing your business. Twice.

Whoever invented the automatic flush clearly wasn’t a parent.

3.     Pro athletes are inherently cool.

You might think their mystique comes from their fame or their skill or their gargantuan contracts. But tell that to my 2-year old, who, knowing none of that, stared wide-eyed when a horde of minor leaguers came walking by us on their way to the backfields.

Maybe it was their heights. Maybe it was the jerseys. Maybe it was that they all had bats (he really wanted one.) All I know is, Andrew was in awe of what he saw.

4.     Goofball is not the same thing as baseball.

The day we went to Surprise to watch the Rangers practice and then attend their afternoon game, Andrew told us on the 45-minute drive there that he wanted to play “goofball.” Dad and I were under the impression that goofball was a synonym for baseball, since he first used the word while we were talking to him about baseball.

Then we got to the complex, asked Andrew if he wanted to hold a glove or baseball, and he informed us that no, he wanted to play goofball. We insisted that he could, that he could throw the baseball or catch it. Frowning and then crying, he let us know in no uncertain terms that he only wanted to play goofball.

After witnessing the longest toddler meltdown he’s had yet, I still don’t know what goofball is. But I’ll tell you this: it’s not baseball.

5.     Walking a mile with a toddler is not the same thing as walking a mile without a toddler.

Upon seeing that our dinner destination was only a mile away, we opted one night to walk instead of drive. In the heat of a Phoenix afternoon.

We will not make that mistake again.

6.     Small gestures of kindness can mean everything.

At the tail end of Andrew’s aforementioned meltdown at Surprise, when he was no longer sobbing but still very unhappy, a group of players and coaches came walking by. One of the coaches, seeing Andrew, peeled off from the group and gave Andrew a baseball out of his bag. That alone would have been an awesome, kind thing to do. But then he squatted down, asked Andrew his name, and played catch with him for a solid two minutes before moving on.

I haven’t been able to figure out who that coach is yet. But if I do, he’ll be getting a note from me, because he can’t know how much that meant to me, to say nothing of the little boy who tightly held onto his ball for the rest of the morning.

7.     Carrying a toddler on your shoulders > carrying a toddler in your arms

At least until you get sunburned.

8.     It’s hard for toddlers to sleep in strange places.

On past trips, Lindsey and/or Mom have generally been in charge of putting Andrew down for the night, and it always seemed to me like it wasn’t that much different from putting him down at home.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The low point was the night I lay in bed with him for an hour and a half waiting for him to close his eyes. By the time he finally fell asleep, I was ready to do the same.

9.     The sun is physically closer to the ground in Phoenix than it is in Waco.

Some of you who understand science better than I do may say that’s not how it works. To you I can only respond, YOU WEREN’T THERE; YOU DON’T KNOW.

10. The women in my life are superheroes.

For the two days before our trip, my mother-in-law kept Andrew over at her house (including for two nights) so I could get work done. My grandmother-in-law, as she has literally every time we’ve come to Garland in the last 8 years, gave me free room, board, and WiFi to get some work done during that time. So when I sat down to work this morning, I was remarkably stress-free because of how much I’d gotten done in those two days…which wouldn’t have been possible without those wonderful ladies.

And then there’s Mom and Lindsey. Lindsey, Andrew, and I have traveled with my parents, brothers, sister-in-law, and nephew multiple times, and had a great time doing so. On those trips, I’ve tried to balance having fun with being a responsible parent. This trip made clear to me how out of whack my balance was, and how much of the Andrew load Lindsey and my mom had been shouldering. From keeping him occupied on the flights to putting him down for naps to letting him sit in their laps during meals, Lindsey and Mom have unquestionably done 2/3 of the caretaking for Andrew on past trips, and I never realized it at the time. Now I know better, and now that will change.

Patty, Grandmother, Mom, and Lindsey: thank you, thank you, thank you. Y’all are wonderful. I’ll try to do a better job of telling you more often.

Grace Upon Grace (Friday Devotional)

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

- John 1:16

This past Monday, I was at the park watching my son play on the playground. It had been a stressful morning, with more whining and less listening than I’d have preferred, and I was grateful for the respite, some time for him to run off excess energy and for me to have a little space. As I watched him climb the stairs to get to the slide (pretty steep for a two-year old) I couldn’t help but admire his determination and his precision, how carefully and intentionally he lifted his leg and how tightly he held on to the railing. Suddenly, he turned his head and locked eyes with me. “Hi Dada!” he cried out, a grin filling his face. Then without another word, he went back to the work at hand, on to the next step.

In that moment, I had one of those incomparable moments of parental bliss where you’re filled with pride and joy at what a wonderful child God has given you. The stress from the morning melted away, its last remnant a longing thought: “Why can’t every moment be like this?” The answer came to me instantly, so clear that it almost seemed audible: “What kind of love would that be?”

God’s answer: not my kind. Perhaps the greatest joy of salvation in Jesus Christ is knowing that our heavenly Father’s love for us is not based on a collection of happy memories weighed against disappointments. God didn’t make a pros and cons list when deciding whether to love you—before you were even born, God loved you fully and unconditionally.

The ultimate proof is the cross. “While we were still sinners,” Romans 5:8 reminds us, “Christ died for us.” God didn’t wait for us to get our acts together before sending Jesus to save the world from sin, He showed the grace a parent shows their child. Our failures are not ignored, but when we bring them before Him, they are redeemed. Our sins are not condoned, but when we repent, they are forgiven.

God loves you in a way that no mistake, failure, or sin can overcome—and the best way you can respond to that kind of grace is to fill the world with it. When you are angry, seek reconciliation before retribution. When you are bitter, look for friends instead of enemies. When you feel lost, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The Lord has given us grace upon grace—it’s time the children of God learn from their Father.

Improving on Perfection (Friday Devotional)

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

- 2 Peter 1:3

When the iPod first came out, people were amazed by all its features: hundreds of songs in one portable device! ten hours of battery life! all your songs digitally sorted by album, artist, and even genre! There was no doubt, the iPod was a game changer.

But as the novelty wore off, nitpickers found something they didn’t like. The “shuffle” feature, which played songs in a random order, didn’t seem to be working correctly. Too often, songs from the same album would play one after the other, or three songs in a row by the same artist. What was so random about that?

As you might suspect, the iPod’s shuffle algorithm was ensuring the songs were played in a random order—but, just as you can flip a coin and have it come up heads 10 times in a row, so too was the shuffle feature occasionally producing truly random clusters that nevertheless looked suspiciously patterned. The shuffle algorithm was providing perfect randomness—but clearly that wasn’t what people had in mind. So Steve Jobs and Co. wound up bowing to the pressure of their fans, tweaking the algorithm in order to produce results that were less strictly random but seemed more so. As Jobs himself put it, “We're making it less random to make it feel more random.”

As the iPod’s shuffle controversy proves, sometimes even perfection doesn’t satisfy us. One of the least attractive things about our fallen nature is our tendency to pick apart and criticize even the most beautiful things in life, from the sunrise obscured slightly by clouds to the solo with one missed note. Instead of appreciating what we’re given, we can’t seem to help looking for the flaws.

Amazingly, this goes even for how we regard the almighty, gracious, forgiving God of our salvation. When we are tempted, we wonder why He doesn’t intervene; when we stumble, we question whether He cares. Even when we thrive, it can feel emptier than we expected, leaving us to wonder why God didn’t make discipleship just a little bit easier.

When you find yourself nitpicking God’s presence in your life, the words of 2 Peter 1:3 are useful to remember: “His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” In other words, in Christ we have been given everything we need and far more than we deserve. His Word and his Spirit, to say nothing of his grace, are more than enough to get us through any circumstance.

There will undoubtedly be times when it feels like God’s perfect will doesn’t cut it—when His grace doesn’t feel gracious enough, when His power doesn’t feel powerful enough, when His love doesn’t feel loving enough. In those times, pray for the discernment to tell the difference between the appearance of perfection and the reality of it. God has given you what you need to do His perfect will—now it’s up to you to stop looking for the imperfections and get to work.

February Reading Log

February was a short month, but I made time for plenty of reading: sermons, kids' comics, and postmodernism. Take a look!

3 Articles I Like This Month

"The Will of God" by John Spong, Texas Monthly. 25 minutes.

A tribute to writer John Spong's father Will, an Austin-area Episcopal priest, professor, and grief counselor. A beautiful reflection on pastoring, loss, grief, fathers, and sons. I read the last paragraph through tears.

"Everywhere and Nowhere: A Journey Through Suicide" by Donald Atrim, The New Yorker. 35 minutes.

A gripping and haunting account of mental illness and depression, told from the perspective of someone who was on the verge of suicide numerous times.

"How Cities Make Money By Fining the Poor" by Matthew Shaer, The New York Times. 25 minutes.

In 48 of the 50 states (including Texas), one of the ways city governments keep taxes low, revenues high, and the streets "clean" is through civil and criminal court fees, which results in poor defendants being jailed for inability to pay those fees. In other words, in 2019 in the United States of America, debtors prisons still exist. A fascinating, discouraging article on an issue that the Texas Legislature is looking at this session.

THE CHERRY LOG SERMONS by Fred Craddock

Fred Craddock was the Joe DiMaggio of preaching. I say that not so much because he excelled at what he did, but because he made it look effortless. I've tried preaching in his inductive style several times. Trust me—it's incredibly hard.

The first time you heard a Craddock sermon, you would wonder midway through, "Is this going somewhere? He just telling stories." And that was certainly how it appeared. Weaving between observational humor, anecdotes from everyday life, legends he'd read somewhere, and, of course, the biblical text at hand, he'd bounce not between points, but stories. There was usually a moment where you wondered what this was all about. And without fail, that was the moment when it would all come together in his conclusion, when every story would suddenly coalesce into the Big Idea of the message. And then, with a thunderous whisper, he'd leave you with the last line of his sermon, a line that would leave you begging for more even as you realized he'd given you all you needed.

So yeah, I'm a fan of Fred Craddock. But I've learned not to try and imitate him, because his was a homiletical style honed over decades of preaching and teaching, and it looks a lot easier than it is. So in reading The Cherry Log Sermons, a collection of twenty of his messages, I read purely as a devotional exercise rather than an instructional one. The sermons cover the Old Testament and the New, but (like most preachers) Craddock had a soft spot for the gospels.

There's nothing I can say that will do Craddock's sermons justice. Just pull up a comfortable chair and enjoy the stories—and prepare your heart for the moment they suddenly go from entertainment to edification.

IMAGE AND WORD: REFLECTIONS ON THE STAINED GLASS IN THE PAUL W. POWELL CHAPEL, edited by Todd D. Still and W. Dennis Tucker, Jr.

The chapel at Truett Seminary is one of the most beautiful spaces on the Baylor campus, largely due to the beautiful stained glass windows on the east-facing wall. These seven windows, accompanied by a smaller round window on the back wall and the large stained glass depiction of Christ above the pipe organ, are admirable works of art even if you just glance at them, but a closer look—which I've been known to take during a boring lecture—reveals that each of the windows carries a theme. From service to preaching to counseling, each window calls upon a story from both the Old and New Testaments to illustrate the theme.

So in 2008, nine of Truett's professors preached from the stories on those stained glass windows, reflecting upon the themes they are meant to call to mind. The result is a series of insightful messages, as well as a reminder that, when constructed intentionally, a worship space can help contribute to your theology and your worship; a sanctuary can be more than just a room.

The sermons vary in tone and style (you can tell which professors preach regularly and which devote their energies to research), but all are worth reading. If you only pick one though, go with Hulitt Gloer's message entitled "________," a phenomenal message on what preaching is, why it matters, and who does it. Note: The book is out of print now, but you can find a copy for free on the third floor of the seminary. I'll snag you a copy if you ask nicely ;)

BREAD OF ANGELS  by Barbara Brown Taylor

After starting the month with a collection of Fred Craddock sermons, moving on to a collection of Barbara Brown Taylor sermons was a natural progression. Taylor's style is similar to Craddock's, heavy on the stories and light on the three-point deductive style of many preachers (including me.) Bread of Angels contains 29 different sermons, all short (4-6 pages each) and all valuable.

One of my favorite things about Taylor is her ability to get you to read a biblical text in a way you'd never thought about it before. For example, in talking about Peter's aborted attempt to walk on water toward Jesus, which is typically portrayed as a failure of faith, Taylor looks at it differently. She points out that Peter, before stepping on the water, called out to Jesus, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." As she describes it, Peter was doubting from the get-go—while the other disciples were continuing to fight the wind to row toward Jesus, Peter wanted an exception made for him, to be a spiritual superhero for a moment. So the message then shifts from Peter's incredible but limited faith to one about the disciples' slow and steady faith.

Like with Craddock, I can't adequately describe or praise Taylor's preaching. You'll just have to read for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS

In the fourth century, Christianity experienced a phenomenon of asceticism, with devout Christians following the example of biblical figures like Elijah and John the Baptist (and, for forty days, Christ himself) by retreating the desert for fasting and prayer. While most Christians did not follow this way of life, those who did were held in high regard and have since come to be known as "the desert fathers." This volume collects the proverbs which were passed on to the church, first orally and eventually textually.

It's not an easy read, and in my opinion not an especially profitable one either. The desert fathers, like other monastic communities, prized holiness and humility as crucial spiritual virtues, to the point of isolating themselves from society. Based on their sayings, however, this sometimes became asceticism for asceticism's sake, fasting and isolation for the sake of punishing yourself instead done to grow closer to God.

The desert fathers have faded into semi-obscurity due to the paucity of their writings and the rise of other monastic orders, especially within the Roman Catholic Church. While the monks of the desert certainly stand as examples of humility and self-sacrifice to this day, their writings indicate to me that we have more to learn from the Franciscan and Benedictine monks than from their Eastern forebears.

UNDERWORLD by Don DeLillo

Postmodernist novels arrive at truth in a nontraditional way—rather than telling a single story, it tells several at once, with those stories often only loosely relating to one another. It is only as you reach the end of the novel that you are able to see how all these strands form a web, not of plot, but of a theme. When done well (e.g. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace) this makes for a challenging reading experience, but one that feels refreshingly like life: multifaceted, complicated, and unable to be tied neatly with a bow. In lesser hands, postmodernist novels become unwieldy beasts which, even after you start to "get it", feel directionless and burdensome. Underworld, often regarded as Don DeLillo's opus and a hallmark of postmodernist fiction, fell into that latter category for me.

Underworld, published in 1997 to critical acclaim, is ostensibly a novel about fear, waste, and uncertainty in the post-Cold War world. Spanning decades, from 1951 to the turn of the 20th century, it tells the stories of a bomb maker, an artist, a teacher, a nun, and others, with cameos from real-life figures of the time, from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to Frank Sinatra to comedian Lenny Bruce. The event which loosely connects all these figures is Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," the home run he hit off pitcher Ralph Branca that won the pennant for the New York Giants—hit on the exact same day that the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb, the home run ball comes to serve as a symbol of security and exceptionalism throughout the book as it passes through the hands of the characters.

If you're like me, that all sounds pretty interesting. And, to be clear, DeLillo is an excellent writer—for example, the book's prologue, which narrates Thomson's homer through the eyes of various attendees to the game, is a masterclass in storytelling. But over the course of the book's 800+ pages, it's hard to find something to hold onto as you read. The plots don't connect in any sort of especially satisfying way and, more importantly, the characters are not especially compelling. In other reviews I've seen DeLillo accused of having a sterile writing style, and I tend to agree as it regards the portrayal of his characters—the writing is good, but there's just not a lot of blood going to the heart.

I spent most of the month plowing through Underworld, and the truth is that by the end I was compelled more by stubbornness than satisfaction. If postmodernism is your thing (I'm becoming convinced that, when it comes to novels, it's not mine), this is the K2 to Infinite Jest's Everest—just as difficult to climb, with a lesser payoff.

ESSENTIAL RAWHIDE KID by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, et al.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was more to comics than superheroes—much more, in fact. While Superman and Batman were still selling pretty reliably for DC Comics, the medium contained a cornucopia of genres, from war stories to monster tales to romances. But, mimicking Hollywood, nothing was as popular as westerns.

Marvel's most popular western magazine was Rawhide Kid, of which nineteen issues are collected in this Essential volume. A typical issue contained four stories: two ten-page tales featuring the titular character, one five page short story that often featured a legend of the Old West, and a two page prose story...and all for 12 cents!

The Rawhide Kid himself was a prototypical gunslinger character, a strong and silent type with preposterously good aim—aim so good, in fact, that his bullets suspiciously always seem to hit opponents in the hand or shoulder, ensuring his duels never turn fatal. Turned into an outlaw due to a misunderstanding, the Kid roamed from town to town, righting wrongs in the vein of the Lone Ranger and wooing lovely ladies just in time to leave town (for their own good, of course.)

It all makes for good clean fun, albeit repetitive stories—Stan Lee has admitted that he found writing these stories tedious, and it shows; if you've read five issues of Rawhide Kid, you've basically read them all. I enjoyed these stories more than I expected to, but wouldn't have minded if the volume was half as long either. A nice change of pace from the usual superhero fare, and a chance to see Stan Lee and Jack Kirby collaborating outside their more famous work for Marvel.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN VOL. 2

There was a time when comics were for kids. Not adults looking for a hit of nostalgia, not teenagers wanting cheap entertainment, but honest-to-goodness children. Prices reflected the audience, with comics available for a dime apiece, and so did the stories. In such an environment, DC Comics thrived, and their unquestioned star was the Big Blue Boy Scout, Superman.

Showcase Presents: Superman Vol. 2 is my second foray into this period for comics's greatest character, and what I found was more of the same silly, charming, wackiness that was present in the first book. Once again, Lois Lane is Clark Kent's suspicious, sometimes-shrewish love interest, eager to trick Superman into marrying her with schemes straight out of I Love Lucy. Once again, Superman's rogues gallery is made up of would-be world conquerors from Luthor to Brainiac to Bizarro, nearly all of whom are conquered not by his strength but by his wits. And once again, none of it should be taken with more than a grain of salt—even in the realm of comic books, some of the tales within are "imaginary stories."

Red Kryptonite, Bizarro World, the bottle city of Kandor—it all makes for easy, delightful reading, the kind of stories you can put in a six-year old's hands, precisely because that's who they were written for. I wouldn't wish for comics go back to this as the default for its major characters, but I wouldn't mind seeing them takes themselves a little less seriously—if Mr. Mxyptlk, an impish prankster from the 5th dimension, was as frequent a villain as Luthor in the 1960s, maybe comics could stand some silliness today.

Grab a Bat (Friday Devotional)

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

- Matthew 5:48

Norm Cash did a lot in his 17 years playing Major League Baseball. He hit 377 home runs, an average of nearly 30 per season. He won the American League batting title in 1961. He received MVP votes in six different seasons, and was a five-time All-Star. Perhaps most meaningfully to him, he was the starting first baseman when his Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1968.

But for all those achievements, Cash is best remembered today for one at-bat in 1973. On July 15 that season, his Tigers went up against Nolan Ryan and the California Angels, and Ryan was simply unhittable. Having already thrown his first career no-hitter earlier that season, Ryan cruised to his second that day with an even more dominating performance, striking out 17 batters (with 16 of those coming in the first seven innings, before his arm started to finally tire). All of Ryan’s trademarks—a fastball that touched 100 mph, a willingness to throw inside to hitters crowding the plate—were on display that day in a performance that left the Tigers shaking their head in disbelief.

Cash, 38 years and old and in his penultimate season as a big leaguer, was no exception, and he proved it in the 6^th inning. As Cash stepped to the plate, umpire Ron Luciano pulled off his mask to make sure he was seeing correctly. He was—Cash had come to the plate armed not with a Louisville Slugger, but a table leg. Chuckling, Luciano told Cash he’d have to go get a real bat. Cash famously replied, “Why? I’m not going to hit him anyway.”

When you read the words of Jesus from Matthew 5:48—"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”—it’s easy to feel like Norm Cash, completely outmatched. Jesus’s command comes in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount, immediately after a call to love your enemies and right before a reminder to give, fast, and pray secretly and to value God more than possessions. One teaching after another about life in the kingdom of God makes that life seem all the more unattainable, as impossible as hitting a Nolan Ryan fastball.

And yet, like the umpire on that day in 1973, God calls His children to grab a bat and step up to the plate anyway. As guilty and flawed as we are, as impossible as godliness is on our own, God tells us to try. Instead of walking through life resigned to spiritual and moral failure, instead of compromising His standards—instead of figuratively stepping to the plate with a table leg—God calls us to be citizens of the kingdom right now. Hear the words of Jesus and act on them today. Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness today.

Is perfection possible? Well, no. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory; none is righteous but Christ. But being a disciple of Jesus means that, instead of giving up on holiness altogether, you trust him to do what you cannot and you serve as best you can. Godliness is not an attainable goal, but it is an aspiration worth pursuing in Jesus’s name and by his grace. A weary, wicked world needs Christians willing to humbly try the impossible—so grab a bat.