"Setting the Record Straight"

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Setting the Record Straight

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

Ecclesiastes 1:14

Baseball fans will always remember the 2007 season—an interesting summer of baseball to say the least! Tom Glavine joined the elite club of pitchers who have won 300 games, the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th home run, and Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s record for most home runs in Major League history.


I’ve been a baseball fan since I was a boy. Growing up near New York City, I was a Yankee fan when Yogi Berra was behind the plate, Whitey Ford was on the mound, Moose Skowron was on first, and my hero Mickey Mantle was in center field. Through the years I’ve taken great delight in telling anyone who would listen that I was at the game when Mickey Mantle wowed all of baseball by hitting the ball out of Yankee Stadium—a hefty swing that hasn’t been repeated to this day!


What I find interesting is that telling that story now has lost some of its impact. Years have passed, and no one seems to care how far Mantle could hit the ball. The passing of time has a way of making what was once significant no longer all that significant. As Barry Bonds will someday find out, the passing of time will crown someone else Home Run King and Bonds’ achievement will be mere history.


In his class-act speech played on the giant screen in center field the night Bonds broke the record, Hank Aaron said, “Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball, and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historic achievement.”


So here’s the sobering lesson. No matter how important your accomplishments are now and how much applause they generate, time will eventually erase the headlines of your life. Ultimately, all that will be left is your name and dates on a seldom-visited tombstone.


Unless, that is, you live your life to do something of significance for eternity. Like the preacher says, “Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last!”



As Jesus taught us when He told the story of the rich fool, “This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? . . . Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys” (Luke 12:20,33).


Prayer: Dear Lord, Help us to remember what is important to save and what is not, to remember what's valuable in heaven over what's valuable on earth. May we always store up the heavenly treasures. AMEN

Through the Bible in a Year
Today read:
Psalms 113-115, 1 Thessalonians 3