An annual highlight of my sports directing career was visiting Spring Training for Texas Ranger telecasts. I started in Port Charlotte, Florida and then shifted to Surprise, Arizona. I loved the relaxed atmosphere and the opportunity to watch players at all levels work on their skills.
I was blessed to cover the careers of some amazing players and one of those was Michael Young. In 2005 he won the American League Batting Title with a .331 average while collecting a league best 221 hits.
What stunned me in the spring of 2006 was watching Michael Young during batting drills. The AL batting champ was hitting off of a batting tee! I remember coaching young kids who balked at hitting off a tee because they felt too “grown up” to revert to T-Ball. I wish I could have shown them how an All-Star batting champ never felt too advanced to focus on fundamental skills.
That lesson of a star athlete focusing on the most basic fundamentals daily led to application of a familiar Scripture passage.
When I first came to faith, I was so excited to learn the basic skills of faith. How do I study the Bible? How do I pray? How do I grow in my faith? But something seemed to happen as I accumulated some seasons under my belt.
I no longer prioritized the fundamentals. I started looking for the latest trend in faith. Which trendy Christian leader should I emulate next? I too often defined myself by movements, instead of by Jesus, the Cross, and His finished work. For me, Spring Training was another reminder that I desperately need the indispensable basics of faith.
Fundamentals are best taught by those who have the gift of teaching and complete knowledge of the skills required. You hope you can find an expert to teach you. That is exactly why the disciples came to Jesus and asked for His help on how to pray. They had watched Him pray. They knew how important prayer was to Jesus. Now they asked Him to teach them. Here is Luke’s “pray-by-pray” of that moment.
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”
(Luke 11:1-4, NIV)
Over much of my ADD-challenged Christian journey, I would skip straight to the “give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins” parts of that prayer. I managed to miss the most important foundational aspect of this insightful prayer. The first fundamental is contained in the opening word.
Father.
I get to relate to God as my Father! That privilege comes only from my relationship with Jesus. Noted preacher Haddon Robinson stated that in the entire Old Testament, God is called Father only seven times, and it is always in respect to the nation of Israel. There is never a recorded instance where any individual dared to address the Sovereign God as Father.
Now Jesus comes on the scene, and Robinson writes about the amazing contrast:
“Yet in the New Testament, at least 275 times, that is how we are instructed to speak to God. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, when we come to the sovereign majesty of the universe the word that should fall readily from our lips is Father.”
That is a game changer! I can come to the God of the universe, who knows my sin, my weakness, and my failure, and call Him Father! Are you kidding me?
I also tended to zoom by the next essential teaching.
Hallowed be your name.
Prayer starts not with a shopping list of what I want God to do, but instead with worship and recognition of who God is. We are coached by Jesus to remember how great God is and to recognize that His ways are not our ways. We are taught to remember that His holiness is perfect, and His grace is our hope. Hallowed be Your name.
When I learn those fundamentals, the rest of my prayer time falls into place. He is my Father who loves me and wants the best for me. He hears me, and He responds. If the answer is no, that is an answer. That may mean my request will be answered later. It may be answered differently. It may not be answered at all. But through all of those responses, I trust that He is holy, powerful, and present.
Here are two more fundamentals to “tee” up your time in prayer.
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. (Philippians 4:6)
I have come a long way in my growth as a follower of Jesus. I have a long way to go but I have grasped one important truth. I need to remember the fundamentals of my faith on a daily basis. I can’t think of a better prayer coach than Jesus. But I need to review His instruction on a regular basis.
Martin Luther said that we need to be preaching the gospel to ourselves every day because we forget the gospel every day. That is so true especially in this disoriented culture we live in. Focus on the fundamentals. On God the Father. On who God is. On the finished work of Jesus. I can tell you that your spiritual strikeouts will be reduced.
