Victorious limp

My world has been rocked lately by Brennan Manning's book RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL... This is some of the excerpt I read today and I just had to copy the best parts. 

The biblical image of the victorious life reads more like the victorious limp. Jesus was victorious not because He never flinched, talked back, or questions, but having flinched talked back, and questioned, He remained faithful…. Our whole understanding of God is based in a quid pro quo of bartered love. He will love us if we are good, moral, and diligent. But we have turned the tables so that he will love us, rather than living because he has already loved us. (175-177)

Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives… Risking everything on Jesus: the ragamuffins gospel says we can’t lose, because we have nothing to lose. Faithfulness to Jesus implies that with all our sins, scars, and insecurities, we satnd with Him; that we are formed and informed by His Word… The willingness to keep growing: Unfaithfulness is a refusal to become, a rejection or grace (grace that is inactive is an illusion), and the refusal to be oneself… The readiness to risk failure: Many of us are haunted by our failure to have done with our lives what we longed to accomplish. This disparity between our ideal self and our real self, the grim specter of past infidelities, the awareness that I am not living what I believe, the relentless pressure of conformity, and the nostalgia for lost innocence reinforces a nagging sense of existential guilt: I have failed. This is the cross we never expected, and the one we find hardest to bear. (185-186)

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all. Winston Churchill said “success is never final; failure is never fatal. It is the courage that counts.” (187)

Letter to my team(4/6):

One pitch at a time, one inning at a time, live in the moment to rise up and dig deep within yourself to find that desire, that drive to be the best you can be. Achieving greatness isn't succeeding every time, but it is giving it everything you have, the best that you have, and waking away knowing you gave it your all. If you go out and do what you know you can do, you will end up on top. God has gifted each one of you with certain talents and strengths. Live up to your potential. Let your talents play for the glory of God. Let your strengths shine as you come together as one team, as one unit, as one family. Where you are weak, another is strong, that is why you need each one of your teammates. Edify and build up one another, encouraging each player to achieve their own possible greatness. And with great power and confidence rest in the fact that God is your ultimate source of strength. With him, everything is possible.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but

 who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion,, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the e

nd the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

It's our house, our game... Their blood their pain.." Have courage today. Dare greatly. Strive valiantly. Focus on your wins, not failures. Take every loss as an opportunity to learn. Rather than win loss it is win learn. Change your perspective so every setback is just a stepping stone to you getting better. If you don't get a hit, take that chance to learn, grow, step up. WINLEARN! not winlose. When you are giving your best, that is what is asked of you. So we are either succeeding or becoming

 aware of ways we can get better. Therefore, we never fail. There's only room for rising up in each moment. Give it your best, give it your all. Believe in yourse

lf and believe in eachother. I believe in you.

choosing

Every day is a choice... A choice to live for a purpose, live for something you created. We were created to life life to the fullest, to experience greatness in who we can be. Not success, but significance. Significance is who you are, not what you do. Choosing the other option, you choose to go through the motions of life, the complacency and lack of effort.  But we must desire to choose the straight and narrow. There is one way... choose wisely.