Error

Error. A few days ago, a baseball legend passed away. Bill Buckner, a lifetime .289 hitter, a NL batting champion and an all-star, passed away in Idaho at 69. He was a great ball player that played for 22 years with five different teams, but he will always be remembered for one fateful night in New York during the 1986 World Series.

In game six of the World Series against the New York Mets, Bill let a ground ball go through his legs in the tenth inning allowing the game winning run to score to force a game seven. The Mets would eventually win the World Series and the curse of the Red Sox continued. Every great play and every great season Bill Buckner had, took a back seat to that one error at first base.

Things like that happen in our lives too, except we don’t call them errors, we call them sins. Many times our sins become what defines us to others. They look at us and see our past sins over everything else we may have done in our lives. We could have been an all-star in everything we had done, but one error is all anyone remembers. When Bill died the other day, all they kept playing when the talked about his death was that fateful error.

We can’t let that continue to define us, Bill didn’t. He spoke about it when asked, but he didn’t let it haunt him from continuing on with his life. It reminds me of the story of Peter when he denied Christ three times. He could have let that define him, but Christ made sure that He forgave him so he could continue on to do great things like his sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

Don’t let your past sins define your future. Don’t let other’s remembrance of your past sins define you either. God has forgiven you and is ready to use you to glorify His name.

Have a great day and God bless.