My five year old just completed his fourth season of baseball. To be honest, I don’t know who has more fun, me or him? I have also completed my third season as a coach. I truly enjoy keeping twelve kids from playing in the dirt, off the fence and not maiming each other with their aluminum bats.

However, the best part of coaching is that I get to watch my son play…up close. To be able to give him a high five right after he hits a great ball or pick him up and dust him off after a tough play is great. I love experiencing the game with him.

My role for the team, besides herding cats, is third base coach. It’s my job to bring the players from second to home plate. Most of the time I do a good job…most of the time. Where I tend to struggle is when my son steps into the batters box.

I really am not living vicariously through him…I promise. But what I am doing is hoping, praying that he makes contact with the ball. There is nothing like watching his face as he runs to first base after getting a hit. It makes me so happy to see him happy.

Watching him run to first base is great, but when my eyes are fixed on him, I fail to do my job. My job is to get each player home. As much as I want to watch him and celebrate with him, I have to remember to keep my eye not on him, but to keep my eye on the prize. The prize in baseball is a run.

Life is so much like baseball. My job is the same. Keep my eye on the prize and get as many people home as I possibly can. That is the prize…heaven. But just like in baseball, it’s easy to get distracted. Life throws so much at us that it almost seems impossible to keep our eyes fixed on one point. It’s like our head is on a swivel. Constantly spinning and only if we are lucky do we catch a glimpse of the prize.

Paul challenges us to live our lives differently. Not to fall in the trap at looking everywhere else, but to make the prize our focal point. The amazing benefit of doing that is how everything else comes so clearly into focus…just by putting the prize first.

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13-14

Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians’ should be a charge to us. May it inspire you this week to keep your eye on the true prize.