Redefining Greatness

For an extraordinary pitcher he performed few extraordinary feats. Though a veteran of twenty-one seasons, in only one did he win more than twenty games. He never pitched a no-hitter and only once did he lead the league in any category (2.21 ERA, 1980).Yet on June 21, 1986, Don Sutton rubbed pitching elbows with the true legends of baseball by becoming the thirtieth pitcher to win 300 games.

He consistently did what pitchers are supposed to do: win games. With tunnel-vision devotion, he spent twenty-one seasons redefining greatness.

He reminds us of a quality that is a common denominator in any form of greatness—reliability.
Re-liable.
Liable means responsible.
Re means over and over again.
I’m wondering if this has found its way to some contemporary saints of reliability.

If such is the case I can’t resist the chance to say two things.
The first? Thank you.
Thank you senior saints for a generation of prayer and forest clearing.Thank you teachers for the countless Sunday school lessons, prepared and delivered with tenderness.Thank you missionaries for your bravery in sharing the timeless truth in a foreign tongue.Thank you preachers. You thought we weren’t listening, but we were. And your stubborn sowing of God’s seed is bearing fruit you may never see this side of the great harvest.Thanks to all of you who practice on Monday what you hear on Sunday. You spent selfless hours with orphans, at typewriters, in board meetings, on knees, in hospital wards, away from families, and on assembly lines. It is upon the back of your fidelity that the gospel rides.

I said I had two things to say.

What is the second?
Keep pitching.
Your Hall of Fame award is just around the corner.

From God Came Near, Copyright 1987, Max Lucado