A pastor recalls his father teaching him to relax during baseball by guiding his swing, then compares that to how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. Surrendering to the Spirit's direction, rather than gripping tight from fear, is what actually makes us better at what we do.
When I was a boy, my dad was teaching me to play baseball, and he wanted to show me how to bat. My dad would throw the ball over, and instead of swinging, I would hide from the ball because I was afraid of it hitting me in the face. So my dad asked my brother to pitch. My dad comes over to me. He places his feet next to my feet. He puts his hands over my hands. He lined up his arms with my arms, and he told me, just let me help you swing. And so my brother throws the pitch. The ball begins to come toward me. And I tensed my whole body up again. And my dad was trying to hit the ball on my behalf, but I was tensing my body because I was so afraid of getting hit by the ball. And I was afraid of missing. I didn't want to fail. I was all worked up. I was all tense. And so finally, my dad tells me to just relax. He said, just let me show you. Don't worry about it. Now, from what I recall, if my memory serves me correctly, I actually closed my eyes and I just didn't even know when the pitch was coming. Finally, I felt my dad's hands over my hands, his arms over my arms, moving me in the direction I was to go. At the proper angle, and I felt the contact with that ball. Now, I felt accomplished, but all I had to do was finally surrender to the form that my father was giving me. In the same way, the Holy Spirit wants to help us. He wants to help us be ministers. He wants to help us be parents. He wants to help us be good children to our parents. He wants to help us in all aspects of life. So often we're so tense because we're afraid of what life is throwing at us. We're afraid that perhaps we might fail. And instead of yielding to His movements, we tense up. And we tense up when we try to do things on our own. We tense up when we resist his direction. We tense up when we think that the job looks too big to be accomplished. When you begin to yield and you let the Holy Spirit put his hands over your hands, place his feet by your feet, and show you the proper way, then you begin to make contact. Then you begin to make progress. We accomplish more in surrender than we do in striving. To learn more about the Holy Spirit, get Holy Spirit: God Within You at encounterthespirit.com.
