This year, I’m coaching my daughter’s softball team and head coaching my son’s baseball team. As a former baseball player myself, the experience has brought back a flood of memories—lessons learned on the field that extend far beyond the game.
Sports teach plenty of life lessons, but baseball, in particular, has a way of mirroring deeper truths.
One lesson that stands out is the difference between trying to succeed and simply trying not to fail.
Take fielding, for example. No one steps onto the field hoping to miss a grounder. But if your mindset is don’t miss this, don’t mess up, you’re already playing from a place of fear. Instead, every pitch, every play, you have to tell yourself, I’m going to make this catch.
The same is true for hitting. If your goal at the plate is just don’t strike out, you might avoid striking out—but that doesn’t mean you’re going to hit a home run.
And isn’t life the same way? Sometimes, we get so caught up in not sinning that we miss the bigger calling—to actively do good. We weren’t created just to avoid wrongdoing but to pursue holiness, to love boldly, to bring light into the world.
As my brother-in-law put it so well: Being good is not the same as not being bad.