O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you. Psalm 84:12

Gus Triandos and Clint Courtney were catchers for the Baltimore Orioles back in the 1950″s. They used a regular catcher’s glove for the pitchers on staff who threw fast balls and curves. Their ingenious manager, Paul Richards, also designed an oversized catcher’s mitt for them to use in handling the dancing unpredictable knuckleballs of Hoyt Wilhelm, one of the greatest knuckleball pitchers of all time.

Our life challenges these days require a new way for us to catch too. The usual straight balls or curves of family, business, religion, media, education, military and our government have suddenly turned into bobbing and moving knuckleballs of uncertainty. In our present innings, the same old glove of the past is ineffective.

Is there a trusted designer we can turn to? Is there another type of outsized mitt for our lives? May we suggest we rely on the Ultimate Designer; the One who created Clint Courtney, Gus Triandos, Hoyt Wilhelm, Paul Richards and the potential in us to play baseball or use baseball as a way of understanding. That mitt is fashioned and is individually tailored through our privilege of divine conversation called prayer. Bear with me on this hopeful play on words…it’s the best com”mitt”ment we can make.

When haunting thoughts of the past or present bob through our mind, when secular lessons jiggle around and no longer make sense, when religious traditions begin to spin and float rather than liberate, when the media hysterics swirl in chaotic patterns, then seek, ask, and knock for God’s management and design.

Below is a prayerful poem, entitled I AM by Helen Mallicoat. It comes’straight from the bull pen of the Lord,and it can help us catch the truth the next time life pitches us a major league knuckleball:

I was regretting the past
and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
“My Name is I AM.”

He paused, I waited, He continued.
“When you live in the past with it’s
mistakes and regrets, it is hard.
I am not there.
“My name is not I WAS.

“When you live in the future with it’s
problems and fears, it is hard.
I am not there.
“My name is not I WILL BE.

“When you live in this moment
it is not hard. I am here.
“My Name is I AM.”

Matthew 7:7