Legacy Playbook

It is a good thing to remember God’s faithfulness. They are indicators of more to come. Remembering these moments are pillars we can hold onto in times of difficulty. But how easy is it to forget! We don’t forget the things though that harm us do we? But we surely forget those former God moments that deepened our faith. 

There is a protection in remembering, right? One gets abuse as a child and it’s a protection to stay away from that person in the future. One can forgive another but not forgetting puts a boundary of protection around us against those that harmed us. Remembering goods things is also a protection in times of difficulty. They serve as cairns in our lives. 

A cairn is a grouping of stones travelers used to put on the ground to help them navigate a journey from one place to another across difficult mountainous terrain during bad snowy weather. I’m reminded how important it is to put cairns in the hearts fabric as future memories of Gods goodness in the midst of tracking life’s journey. 

One important cairn or marker of Gods faithfulness always remembered, happened when I was with the Kansas City Royals verses the Toronto Blue Jay’s during the ‘85 payoffs.

We had just finished winning game 5 in Kanas City to bring a 2 game deficit to one game. No team had ever got behind 3 games to one and come from behind to win. We were now down 3 games to 2 and headed to Toronto for what would hopefully be two more wins and a World Series berth. 

The team was now on a flight to Toronto, headed northeast out of KC on a beautiful early evening flight. Thunderous clouds had built up to the east as the pilot was navigating around the booming thunderheads. Majestic lightning rods permeated the high altitude clouds with amazing consistency. It was a God moment! 

As my face pressed against the window on the right side of the plane to watch the action, all of a sudden, similar to the movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner, I heard in my spirit, “something wonderful is going to happen”! It wasn’t “build it and they will come”, as Costner described, but something just as enlightening.  

The moment was so touching that tears weld up in my eyes in gratitude. Janet was sitting next to me and asked, “what’s going on”? I shared the moment with her and we talked about the possibilities as a few minutes passed. WOW! What a moment, nothing before or since that time have I experienced anything so deep and so clear. 

Game six, came and went, as we won it sending Kansas City and Toronto to a final game seven. Nothing in game six lead to an expression of what I had experienced on the plane two days before. 

I don’t remember much about the day spent in Toronto before game seven but I’ll always remember what happened during the game. 

We were in the sixth inning of game seven when the moment on the airplane, when the supernatural manifested itself in the natural happened. That which had so clearly been heard with spiritual ears on the plane now visited again as I stepped into the on deck circle. 

The Royals had a one run lead with runners at first and second base and Steve Balboni hitting; Field of Dreams again expressing its voice. “This is the moment”, came the voice. I paused a moment, looking around to see if someone were behind me. The voice spoke clearly again. “Bases will be loaded”! What! This is almost too much to fathom as my heart raced. 

Sure enough, moments later, Steve Balboni walked to load the bases. I had done all my preparations in the on deck circle to ready myself to hit off Dave Steib, the Toronto pitcher. 

I had pondered what Steib might throw me as I stepped to the plate. He had generally tried to throw me sliders and so I was set to look for one. Sure enough the first pitch was a slider, low for ball one. What happened next was an out of body experience. 

As Dave motioned to throw the next pitch something very uncommon happened. I was again looking for a slider but my hands exploded toward the fastball that had just left his finger tips a fraction of a second early. 

As a side noted about strategy,  a hitter isn’t trained to swing at a pitch different than what he is looking for. I was looking slider and my hands moved to strike the fast ball, against all my training. Weird! Out of body experience. It’s like I couldn’t mess the moment up. It’s like something was destined to happen no matter, “something wonderful”!

The ball left my bat and headed toward right field. Jesse Barfield, Toronto’s right fielder, raced back toward the wall and leaped high. My body was in slow motion as I vacated the batters box and watch the ball hit on top of the fence, evading a very athletic Barfield. Three runs scored and we went on to win the game. Remembering matters and there was no forgetting this moment. 

Our Lord is an amazing loving God who wants good things for us to remember Him. With even more reminders of His past setting the groundwork for future memories of goodness. They serve as cairns or markers as to who God is and wants to be, even in times of crisis. When is the last time you counted the cairns of His faithfulness? Keeping a grateful heart causes us to remember. Remembering matters and your legacy counts on it. 

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Jim Sundberg