Baseball fans countdown the day until pitchers and catchers report like a kid impatiently marking off calendar days til Christmas. The teams arrive in Florida and Arizona as the nation grows weary of gray and gloom. Spring Training is the first hope of Spring. We are beginning the annual six week period of teaching, training, and repetitious fundamental drills. It seems almost silly for uber talented and well paid athletes to be reviewing the same fundamentals they learned in youth baseball. Yet you watch the very best players focus on repeating proper fundamentals over and over. Superstars hit off a tee. Gold Glove fielders practice footwork repeatedly. All-Star pitchers constantly repeat correct throwing motion. The message is clear. Talent is important but even the best can be derailed by forgotten or sloppy fundamentals. Perhaps we should co-opt that idea of fundamental training for followers of Jesus. Today I am starting a movement for Christians to report for Spring Training. For a few
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Bella seems surprised by the blog title but a song from Kenny Chesney caught my attention. In the lyrics an interviewer asks a man celebrating his one hundred and second birthday about his secret to life. His response? Don’t blink He talks about how life seems to be a blink from childhood to reaching the century mark. I’m still a ways from the century mark though my shoulder feels that old this morning. It seems like just yesterday that I was playing sandlot baseball as a kid. Moments ago I was in high school being Attention Deficit before ADD was cool. Just yesterday I met the stunning Joni Banks and somehow talked her into dating me. Wasn’t it just weeks ago that three adorable baby boys came into our lives? Don’t blink. Married almost 49 years. Five decades of directing live TV sporting events. Seven grandchildren. Are you kidding me? I have had, if I may borrow the franchise of Frank
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