In baseball, all of the batters who have been elected to the Hall of Fame have a record that shows that they failed far more often than they succeeded. Ty Cobb, on average, failed to get a hit 63 times out of every 100 at-bats. Over the history of major league baseball, no batter has failed less than Mr. Cobb, and there are even three players in the Hall of Fame who failed, on average, 74 times out of every 100 at-bats. Imagine that – succeeding somewhere between 26 and 37 times out of 100, and being considered the best at something.
I bring this up, because all of us know what it is like to not have things go our way. We approach a task with what we think is a clear objective, only to have the outcome be something very different. In our minds, it is easy to categorize that as a failure – and we don’t like to fail. Depending on the task, and how painful the outcome is, we are willing to try again with the hope of succeeding, but if we go too long without getting an acceptable outcome, ultimately, we give up and stop trying.
Over the years, I’ve heard from too many people that they are giving up on helping others. Usually, the reasons are something like they feel that they have been taken advantage of, or they haven’t seen any change in the lives that they have invested in, or that they have simply wasted their time and resources. But how many lives do you need to positively impact out of 100 for it to be a worthwhile effort? Isn’t it worth it if even one does better? And what isn’t immediately apparent to us is how the other 99 might be changed for the better later in life, through opportunities that only arise because you were willing to help out at an earlier point. Sometimes the help that we provide doesn’t change a person, but it sustains someone so that they can change later.
It may just be, however, that the biggest impact that we have when we try to help others is the impact on our own hearts. If you read carefully the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke Chapter 10, you see a man who stops to render aid to an injured traveler. What you don’t find in the parable is how it ends for the injured man – we don’t know if he makes a partial or full recovery, or if he recovers at all. However, Jesus tells the story to make the point about what it looks like to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is the act of trying to help our neighbors that draws our hearts closer to Christ, no matter what the outcome is.
If you see an opportunity to help someone, don’t let past failures keep you from stepping back up to the plate and taking another swing at providing assistance. There is no deadline on the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, and God calls us to actions, not results. Give it another shot. You might knock it out of the park.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron