Spring Training 2017 in Lakeland, FL (Photo Courtesy: Tom Hagerty/Flickr)
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:6-7
Every year, as spring training draws closer, I find myself feeling anxious, on edge, bordering irritable. I’ve been a pitching coach in professional baseball for several years, reporting to spring training in February or March depending on my role. Since I know it’s going to happen nearly the same time every year, why would I have these feelings? I would ask several questions in my own head: Why am I so anxious? Why does my level of patience seem so short with everyone?
I noticed that my “normal” personality — very upbeat, positive and full of energy — disappears suddenly just a few weeks before leaving. I’m always sad when this happens, causing more frustration not only for me, but for my family.
I began to ask some of my closest friends, who were also getting ready to leave for spring training, if they experienced these feelings. I discovered that I wasn’t alone. Things like going into an unfamiliar environment, taking on a new job or new job responsibilities, leaving the known for the unknown, it’s never easy nor should it come without some questions in our minds.
Most of us are used to being in complete control of our small environment — at least we think we are! We plan our next move in our careers, or in our conversations to the extent we anticipate what others will say or do. We go as far as having an alternate course of action — “they say this, then I’ll say that.”
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. I’m not advocating for not having a plan or being prepared. However, when we go so far down the road of trying to predict what will happen, we end up spending potentially hours with things that never happen, wasting mind and heart time.
The verses of Philippians 4:6-7 make really clear what we should do. First, bring our thoughts, wishes and requests to God through praying about all of them. Second, peace can be found in the fact that no matter what happens, God is going to watch out for us. He’ll guard us by protecting not only our hearts, but also our minds. We were created with those two key components — an ability to have our mind and heart be part of the total equation when it comes to our decisions. God wants to hear the desires of our hearts, as it reads in Psalm 37:4.
So next time you feel that uneasy or anxious feeling come over you regarding a decision you’re facing, pray. Don’t plan.
– Steve Merriman, Hartford Yard Goats pitching coach
(Double-A Eastern League Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies)
If you would like to submit a reader devotional, please email all submissions to jason@sportsspectrum.com.
Clint Hurdle is an inspiration today, but it hasn’t always been an easy road for him. He was a first-round MLB Draft pick and considered a phenomenal talent, but he didn’t succeed as a player to the degree he wanted. As a young man, he reached for a bottle and it cost him dearly as he faced the embarrassment of arrests and family problems related to his addiction.
But he looked up when he hit bottom and became a winner for God. For more than 20 years he’s been sober, and he got a new lease on life when he became a minor league manager and eventually a major league manager. His teams always competed well. He was instrumental in the success of the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates reaching the playoffs.
And more importantly, he is committed to pointing others to Jesus as he’s built an online following with his messages of faith and encouragement.
As we look at Hurdle’s life, we can see our own weaknesses. We’ve also been losers when we grabbed various idols, but became winners through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Our life on earth is brief, and we need a proper perspective in light of eternity. If we want to have endurance in a world of constant adjustments, we shouldn’t think only about money or anything we hold in our hands because it may disappear. Though it’s important to work and earn money, we may face medical debts, job loss and other circumstances beyond our control that put us in a financial crisis. So we shouldn’t make money our god (Proverbs 23:4-5).
In some cases, we place too much reliance on a person who may or may not be beside us years from now. None of us knows the length of our lives and occasionally people change so much that separation becomes reality in shocking ways. Relationships are needed, but people are here for a short time — while God is with us forever (Psalm 146:3-4). Even though we admire certain leaders, their time in office ends quickly and they don’t always do as they should. It doesn’t take watching much of the news to see turnover as various leaders leave public life and someone else takes their place.
Practically everything in this world is like sinking sand, but God is more reliable than a rock foundation. Sometimes dynamite and decay make rocks fall to pieces, but God is evermore the same and never weakens or fades. The Lord is faithful to keep all of His promises and will never fail (Psalm 146:5-7). When we understand who God is and what He can do, our fears are calmed and we gain confidence for living because we have a constant companion even if everybody else leaves.
— Bill Kent, Pastor of Memorial Baptist Church, Sylvania, Georgia
The world knows him as not only the best to ever grace his sport, but the greatest Olympian of all time. Michael Phelps — winner of 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold — ruled the swimming pool for 20 years, setting records and statistics that may never been seen again. He has become the benchmark for success in his sport, as well as work ethic when it comes to consistency over a lengthy career that spanned five Olympic Games. In the 10 years since Phelps retired, he has been sought after as a motivational speaker and, at one such event a while back, he gave the audience a glimpse into the mindset that drove him to achieve what he did for so long.
“When you have a goal that’s important enough to you, nothing will stand in your way,” he said. “During the days where I didn’t want to go or I was tired, I was sore … I still went because if I’m going to go practice and I’m going to get 10%, 20%, 30% out of that day, it’s better than getting 0%. So I was always taking steps forward. I swam for over 20 years and I can guarantee you there was probably 100 days where I didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to stay in my bed and not get out. Those are the days where you have to … get up and do something because I think that’s what separates the good from the great. The greats do things when they don’t always want to do them.”
Studies are beginning to show that our society has a problem with discomfort. We’ve become so accustomed to having things tailored to our exact preferences and to eliminating any type of uncomfortable feeling that our threshold for resilience is increasingly lowering. The ability the average person has to endure and do hard things today compared to previous centuries is surprisingly less. This means that, in order for us to reach the formative place the apostle Paul talked about — where our suffering produces patience, our patience strengthens our character, and our character brings about hope (Romans 5:3-5) — then we need to grow in our ability to befriend discomfort as an aid in our development.
Phelps, and other super athletes like him, understand the value in pushing yourself beyond your limitations and making yourself do hard things, even (and especially!) when you don’t want to do them. It’s those moments when your mind takes over and wills the rest of you to get out of your comfort zone and do the next right thing instead of coming up with a million excuses.
Jesus didn’t promise us a comfortable life. In fact, He actually promised us that we would have trouble (John 16:33). He didn’t experience the resurrection without the pain of the cross, so neither should we expect to get a pain-free pass either. But the promise that gives us reason to do hard things? “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
So on those hard days when you don’t want to get those extra reps in, or push yourself that little bit or get that project across the finish line or even just get out of bed and face your day, remember that these are the moments that determine who and what you’ll become.
Steve Nash (13) gives a high-five to Phoenix Suns teammate Hedo Turkoglu (19), Nov. 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” — 2 Corinthians 10:5
Imagine if a high school basketball coach pulled aside a player who was getting ready to take the floor and start his first high school game, and said to him, “I know this is your first high school basketball start, but I want you to know you’re not ready and you’re not worthy.” That would be crazy, right? What coach in their right mind would say that in that setting?
However, we say things to ourselves or about ourselves all the time that we would never say to someone else. And if we did, we would feel bad about it and apologize.
“Don’t believe everything you think” is often good advice. Although positive thinking or self-talk is sometimes frowned upon by Christians as secular psychology and wishful thinking, there is an element of truth in practicing this idea.
We encourage others all the time as they embark on games, projects and other activities. Why not encourage ourselves? Coaches and teammates with a healthy team culture make a regular habit of being encouragers. Steve Nash, the former great NBA point guard, supposedly gave out 239 high-fives per game.
As Christians, if we truly believe God loves us and sent His Son to die for us on the cross for our sins, we would not allow ourselves to belittle and put down ourselves since He clearly values us so much and made us in His own image. Take a look at these passages in their full context to explore this idea further:
Ephesians 4:15: Speak the truth in love (including to yourself).
Romans 12:2: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
2 Corinthians 10:5 (above): Take every thought captive.
Take this idea of self-talk to a whole new level and learn to live out of a continued conversation with God, which 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NASB) refers to as “praying without ceasing.” We can start with speaking God’s truth to ourselves and put an end to saying things to ourselves that we would never say to someone else.
In the process, we will become less self-conscious and more God-conscious, so we can take our eyes off ourselves and freely serve Him and others with confidence!
Auburn baseball chaplain Mason Maners prays with the team. (Photo courtesy of Mason Maners)
Auburn (42-20), the No. 4 national seed in the college baseball NCAA Tournament, is preparing to host fellow SEC foe Ole Miss (39-21) in the best-of-three super regionals this weekend for a chance to advance to the College World Series (CWS). It would be the seventh time in program history the Tigers reached college baseball’s biggest stage.
And while head coach Butch Thompson guides the Tigers toward the CWS on the diamond, it’s former star player and current chaplain Mason Maners guiding the Tigers toward a deeper relationship with Jesus during their postseason run.
As a child, Mason was given the nickname “Mustard Seed” by his parents — a reference to Matthew 17:20 and a reminder to never lose faith, even when hope is bleak. After enduring multiple failed rounds of in vitro fertilization, Martin and Allison Maners continued to hope that God would bring them a child.
Mason was already a miracle child at birth, yet Martin and Allison didn’t realize just how true that moniker would end up being. He was inches away from his athletic career — and life — being permanently altered when a football injury during his freshman year of high school nearly left him paralyzed.
Growing up in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, near Birmingham, he was inundated by Auburn Athletics from an early age. Martin took a young Mason to a Tigers football game, where he had the chance to stand on the sidelines.
“I think that just blew his mind and enamored him with it,” Martin said in the video. “So football became a real exciting part of his growing up. Baseball as well.”
Martin was a football star himself at Vestavia Hills High School in the 1980s, and Mason spent his Friday nights at the stadium watching the high school team play. He envisioned himself on that field one day.
He didn’t have to wait long for that chance, earning a spot on the field as a freshman, but that chance was soon snatched away.
He remembers it well — the last day of spring practice his freshman year. The team was playing a live scrimmage. One of the last plays of the day. Playing the outside linebacker position, Mason heard a coach bark that the play was coming to him.
“As soon as I made the tackle, I felt a tingling, burning sensation go throughout my whole entire body,” Mason said. “I lost feeling in my feet and my hands.”
Coaches did their best to stabilize him until paramedics arrived. When they did, they loaded him on a stretcher and secured his head and neck. When he arrived at the hospital, he was able to walk over to another room to get X-rays, and the doctor reassured him it was likely nothing too serious.
“Really, what I was thinking was that the new ‘Captain America’ was coming out that night and I had tickets,” Mason said in the video. “I hope we can hurry this up.”
But the appointment was beginning to take longer expected.
“Once the X-rays came back, we had the ER doctor tell us the neurosurgeon would be in here in a moment to speak to us, and that kind of rocked our world,” Martin said.
The doctor said Mason’s X-rays showed that his injury resulted in broken C-1 and C-2 vertebrae, what’s known as the “Hangman’s break.”
“Really by God’s grace and mercy, I didn’t look down or turn my head a certain way, because any minor movement or any of that could’ve caused me to be paralyzed or dead,” Mason said. “God’s hand was just over it the whole entire time.
“Apart from Him, I don’t believe that I’d be sitting here today wearing an Auburn uniform or even walking or being alive.”
After his injury, Mason found himself in neck braces for weeks on end in an attempt to heal. And it worked.
“I went back to get X-rays and the doctor was just astonished to see that the bones healed perfectly back and everything looked almost better than it did before,” he said.
Though his bones healed, doctors wouldn’t sign off for him to play football again. But baseball was still in the cards, so he joined the baseball team the following season.
“But we never imagined after that,” Martin said, “that Division-I baseball, let alone Power-5 baseball, would be in his future.”
Mason began his collegiate career at Jacksonville State in 2021 and excelled for three seasons before transferring to Auburn for the 2024 campaign. As a senior, he ranked third on the team with a .296 batting average and added seven home runs and 17 RBIs. He was also a perfect 7-for-7 on stolen base attempts.
Now that his eligibility is exhausted, Mason is the chaplain for a Tigers team that has its sight set on a CWS appearance. Current players rave about his spiritual impact in his new role.
“Mason does an unbelievable job,” sophomore pitcher Christian Chatterton said on Sports Spectrum’s “What’s Up” podcast last month. “It’s kind of crazy because three years ago, he was playing for Auburn, and he was also really good here. He’s done a great job. He’s somebody that we can all go to talk about faith and other stuff.
“I think this team is also special in the way that a lot of our guys on our team are just all-in for Jesus. I think a lot of that credit has to go to Mason, for sure.”
Junior infielder Ryne Farber agreed.
“Outside of team Bible studies, [Mason will] just come up and talk to you. He wants to know how you’re doing. He wants to know how your walk is going,” Farber said. “I think community is so important, and to have people that are all wanting to be great baseball players, but more importantly, be great people and grow toward the Lord is awesome.”
Last June, Mason posted on Instagram about how grateful he is for this role in leading young athletes in their faith.
“Glory and praise to the Lord for this incredible year!” he wrote. “Serving as Chaplain for this team has been one of the greatest privileges and deepest joys. I’ve been continually overwhelmed by the goodness and grace of the One who is faithful in every season. He is truly worthy of everything. Grateful for all He’s done—excited to be back in August!”
