An Observation About Aging—and Baseballs

Introduction: You just can’t change some facts. Aging is one of those facts!

Text: Ecclesiastes 12:1, KJV: 1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

Thoughts: Like most good grandparents, my wife and I tried to attend as many of our oldest grandson’s youth league baseball games. One unusual feature was to have a coach or another volunteer to “shag” or track down the baseballs that got by the catcher and umpire. Admittedly this did keep the pace of the game going a little faster than if the volunteer wasn’t there.

And guess what happened on the last game of the season. One of our grandson’s coaches wasn’t there and they needed someone to be the ball custodian (okay, that term does sound better than ‘ball catcher”, or “ball boy”, or anything like that). The head coach had asked my stepson to do this but he was on call and, as it turned out he did have to leave during the game.

Guess who volunteered. Yep, good old grandpa!

I didn’t realize just how out of practice I was until the first baseball got past the catcher and umpire. Now, I’m not very good at guessing distances but I think the distance from pitcher to batter was about 60 feet. I’m standing a couple of feet behind home plate.

I tried to throw the ball back to the pitcher.

The ball didn’t make it nearly that far! Maybe half way. Of course, I didn’t want to risk my right (dominant) arm by throwing something too hard or too far but this—well, I realized in a hurry that, as I heard someone say a long time ago, “my fastball—ain’t!”

I’ll spare you the details about the rest of the game except we—the umpire and I—found an alternate strategy to get the ball back to the pitcher. Oh yes, PTL for aspirin for sore arms, too!

Solomon wrote about how important it was to remember the Creator in the days of one’s youth. Forty years ago, I could put some zip on a baseball or softball and not think twice about it. Yeah, I’m forty years older now and not nearly in the same condition I was back then. Solomon was right, in that it would be easy to complain about these days saying “I don’t have any pleasure in them” even as he did.

But even more than having a sore arm would be a lost soul. The longer one waits to receive God’s gift of salvation, generally the more difficult it becomes. Don’t let aging affect your relationship with God. If you haven’t accepted Christ as your Savior, don’t put it off. There is no need to risk losing your soul—for any reason!

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).