Jimbo's Jots

The year is 1976! There is a young Jim, lying on the floor of the living room reading through the sports section of the Peoria Journal Star. He is combing over the stats page for Major League Baseball. I was a baseball junkie, and maybe still am. I loved baseball! We had the St. Louis Cardinal broadcast on the radio. Cable was new, but we got WGN out of Chicago which broadcasted every Cub game. Since coming to the Detroit area for college, I’ve been drawn into the Tigers. Win or lose for any of my teams, I’m a fan!

The 10 year old Jim, who would look at the newspaper, would peruse the stats that were posted in the Sunday paper. The PJS had batting averages of every player, RBI leaders, steals leaders, doubles, triples. And there I would lie on the floor soaking it all in.

I was reminded of this as I was reading through my Bible reading plan for this year. Currently, reading about 3-4 chapters per day, we are finishing Judges and about to start Ruth. For the record, though, trudging through the last three books of Torah, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, does not bring the same dedication of a 10 year old Jim pouring over the stats of MLB players in 1976.

There is a reason why God included these books of records in the story He tells. For the most part, it was a record of how Israel started and became a nation. Another reason, I believe, is God’s trying to make a connection to a people that had essentially forgotten about Him. A third reason is these were used as a census of the people – a note for the record.

Is it as exciting as reading MLB stats? Not usually. I still want to catch glimpses of not just how my teams are doing, but seeing how individual players are doing. It gives me the opportunity to feel connected to the teams that I love to follow. When I read through the Bible, especially through the Torah, I feel I am able to connect to people God was building a relationship with. There are moments where people are mentioned for doing something for good or even for bad. You really don’t know much about them. For some reason, God speaks of them to give us lessons to learn. Not quite the stats for MLB! But still a moment of teaching that we can grow from.

Welcome to baseball season! Welcome to reading through the Bible! Both are ways for me to connect to people and things that I love . . . for the record!

Be blessed! Be a blessing!

PS Go Cards! Go Tigers! Go Cubs!