Life on the Pasture

For those of you who have been reading this blog, you know that I love baseball. When I came home from Beautiful Savior yesterday, I changed into my Brewers’ attire, fired up the grill for the bratwurst and vegan hot dogs (yes, I have started eating those while on my current diet), and played suitable tailgate music including “Come See What’s Brewing” and America’s “You Can Do Magic” (which became a sort of theme song for the Brewers when they went to the World Series in 1982). In effect, I was trying to relive the magic of 1982 in 2020, looking forward to watching the Brewers hopefully beat the Cardinals so they would be in the playoffs.

Things didn’t work out as I had planned in my head. The Brewers lost the game to the same team that beat them in the 1982 World Series. But this is the crazy COVID-19 world of 2020, and even though they lost, the Brewers still ended up getting into the playoffs due to other teams losing. This is where we’re at.

“This is where we’re at.” In other words, we can’t go back and change the past. Rather than spend a lot of time and effort talking about what should have been, we have to use that time and energy on addressing the needs of the current situation. When you think about it, it’s not a bad way of thinking about our Lord’s forgiveness. The evil one attempts to get us to dwell on past failures and disappointments. But the Holy Spirit continues to draw us closer to Jesus so we can hear Him say, “Don’t dwell on that. This is where we’re at now. You are forgiven.”

So is it bad to think back to the past and try to relive happier times? Hardly. It can be a great blessing. 1982 wasn’t perfect. The Brewers lost the World Series in seven games. But life went on to get us where we’re at now with our Good Shepherd leading us the whole time, encouraging us to celebrate all that is good. As Paul says in Philippians 4: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

Where we’re at now in history includes some very difficult challenges (as every point in history does). But we’re also here with out Lord who gives us more than good memories, but the present reality of the joy of knowing that where we go He goes with us, even when the way is not the way we planned it.

Just like the Brewers somehow in the playoffs and now being in a position to beat the Evil Empire of the West (the Dodgers) and continue a most unlikely road to the World Series (which will hopefully be the subject of a future blog post).

– Pastor Schmidt