Saturday, August 15, 2009

Concerning Josh Hamilton...


It was a kick to the gut when I saw the news that Josh had a night of indiscretion last January. I bought his book, Beyond Belief, and was amazed at the depth of his drug-induced spiral downward. It took a grandmother's love, a wife's commitment, and the power of God to resurrect Josh and give him not only a chance to survive, but to return to the baseball field and play again.

If one lives long enough, he will inevitably discover that a Christian friend who was thought to be devout and strong has nonetheless been unfaithful to a spouse or involved in a business scandal or some other colorful downfall. It never ceases to hurt and hurt a lot. When it's Christian public figure who trangresses and gets caught, it's bothersome because you know cynics will use that opportunity to trot out the "hypocrite" label and gleefully poke fun at Christians everywhere. We yearn for those famous believers to be perfect at all times and show the world that there is a better way.

The problem, obviously, is that we all sin and we tend to sin a lot. And the Bible does very little in the way of sin classification. Little white lies are sins as are murders and mutilating innocent animals. Apparently Christ's blood is thick enough and strong enough to eradicate sins at both ends of the shock value spectrum. God was no doubt as disappointed with whatever it was that I did wrong today as he was with what went on in that Phoenix tavern with Josh. And since Josh was totally repentent, just as I am for my unpublicized sins today, the amazing purification power of grace has rendered us both pure and spotless in God's eyes. I've got to make sure that I'm just as disgusted with my transgressions as I am with Mr. Hamilton's.

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