Obedience does not come with an outcome guarantee.
Yesterday, while dear friends were over and all our kids played in the pool, I spent much of the day praying, dreaming – and worrying – about His Farm System. Does anyone else even want this? Where are we going to find a field for these boys to practice? How could the enormous vision we carry for Gloryland – fields and training grounds, community and worship space, a place built around what youth sports could be rather than how much they can earn – ever become real when we absolutely cannot afford to build it?
I spent a lot of the day trying to see around corners.
Then we had a scare with Glory. She slipped underwater in the hot tub without her life jacket, and for a few awful seconds we were reminded how quickly life can strip away the illusion that we’re in control.
Later in the evening, she was curled up safely between Mike and me in bed while I went back to working on HFS, emailing a new family interested in learning more about what we’re doing. There’s probably some irony in that alone. I had spent the day wondering whether enough people wanted this while answering someone who did. And then Field of Dreams started playing on our TV. (None of us had put it on. Just next in the queue? Hmmm.)
So there I was, watching a man build a baseball field he cannot afford because he believes, for reasons he can barely explain, that he is supposed to. Oh, and his redheaded wife is named Annie. ANNIE. A version of my given middle name, and the pseudonym I’ve used for years when I write things too personal to put my own name on. Yes, I asked Mike probably twenty times if he thought all of this was weird. We’re careful about calling things “signs.” But we do believe God asks us to pay attention.
So in an effort to truly pay attention, I closed my laptop. And just in time.
After building the field, risking their farm and following this strange calling farther than reason would have taken him, Ray, overcome by frustration, shouts: What’s in it for me?
Shoeless Joe answers: Was that why you built all this?
And all of a sudden, all of my own questions started sounding different.
Not wrong. We should ask hard questions. We should plan well, steward wisely and care whether what we’re building actually serves people.
But somewhere in there, I had started asking HFS for something it cannot (and should not have to) give me:
PROOF
Proof that we heard God correctly. Proof that the work will grow. Proof that the sacrifice will be worth it.
Maybe twelve boys become 120. Maybe not. Maybe Gloryland gets built in time for spring baseball. Maybe it doesn’t. Obedience does not come with an outcome guarantee. And success cannot become the evidence that we heard God correctly.
So this is what I’m carrying forward from yesterday:
Build the thing. With gratitude for the opportunity.
And release your claim on what happens there.
So we’re going to love the boys who show up (we do!). Serve the families God puts in front of us (we are!). Do the next thing faithfully (we will!). And stop asking it to prove the effort was worth it. (I hear You!)