by Charles R. Swindoll
1 Samuel 17
Reader alert: [I wrote this back when Lenny Dykstra was playing for
the
Mets. But the truth
still applies.] No offense, but Lenny Dykstra
doesn't
look like much of an athlete. He looks more like some team's
mascot. Or like the guy who wears that silly chicken suit and does
cartwheels around stadiums. The kid can't stand much more than
five-seven. That little Dutch boy is the starting center fielder for
the National League New York Mets. Nicknamed "Nails"---as in "tough
as"
and "harder than."
With game three of the 1986 National League Championship Series fairly
boring and all but over---bottom of the ninth, Mets losing---veteran
Houston Astros' reliever Dave Smith must have smiled inside as the
little guy walked up to the plate. Dykstra fouled off Smith's stinging
fastball, and then, without hesitation, he slammed the next one over
the fence. We're talking Big Apple Explosion!
As LA Times sportswriter Gordon Edes
put it: "His
you-gotta-believe-it,
two-run home run gave the Mets a 6-5 win and transformed Shea
Stadium---as polite as Carnegie Hall for most of the overcast
afternoon---into a high-fivin', Astro-defyin',
bring-on-the-World-Series-jivin' madhouse."
I always sit up
and take notice when odds are defied. We all do, don't
we?
That's why we pull for the underdog. And why we never tire of the
David-and-Goliath story. Or the way those walls fell flat at Jericho.
Or the crossing of the Red Sea. Or Daniel standing nose-to-nose with a
den full of hungry lions.
It's no big deal for huge hunks of humanity to hit homers. But when
the
little fella smashes one over four hundred feet, that's news.
Why? Because that gives all of us
hope. If he can do that, surrounded
by all those
towering odds stacked against him, then there's hope for
me, facing all my odds. It's like getting a shot of fresh motivation
in
both arms.
Want to defy the odds? Aim high. Forget "I can't."
Or, in baseball parlance, get hold
of that bat, step up to the plate,
and slam that
sucker outa the park!
"But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what
is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go
out
to meet it" (Thucydides).
By: Charles Swindoll
