Jeremy Affeldt's Realistic Belief

If you're not a Giants fan or as big a follower of Christian Lefty Middle Relievers (CLuRMs) as I am, you may not know about Jeremy Affeldt. Let's start with the basics; he's a Christian, an athlete, and he makes no claims to live those two lives separately. He runs a blog and frequently makes efforts to speak at charities and events like the recent Giants Fellowship Day last Saturday. He's dealt with injuries his entire career, and many times has had to face the uncertainty of knowing whether or not he will ever again be able to effectively do that which he feels God has called him to do. A few things I gleamed from his talk:

Affeldt is honest with God and his faith. Despite the fact that he's a professional athlete he, like the rest of us, constantly faces frustrations with the path his life takes. He also doesn't attempt to simply let things slide and accept it. Affeldt constantly makes an attempt to understand God's plan for his life so he can better fulfill it. He claims that he (sometimes to a fault) "yells at God." Often times this yelling arises from an inner desire to follow his own path instead of God, and when these two ideas collide he's stuck in the middle frustrated. I'm sure we can all relate to this; God's plan is rarely the most obvious and direct path. Jesus has an answer for this though;

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." -- John 14:1-4

Jesus is both the road paver and the guide. We walk the road ourselves, but Jesus has gone ahead of us to insure that the path is true and has come back to guide us anyway. Unfortunately the presence of the Lord is often not enough to calm our own stubborn hearts. We continue to fight even though we know the correct path to take. We need to remember not only God's guidance but his assurance that things will be fine. The path is scary, this is certain, but the savior of all mankind has gone out to insure that the path is not too treacherous for us to undertake. That's not to say there aren't dangers along the way:

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." -- John 10:10

During his talk, Affeldt also stressed the necessity of following Jesus and

the threat of Satan. "The thief" as Jesus refers to him here comes to steal, kill, and destroy. This verse comes from a passage explaining Jesus as the shepherd and us as the flock; the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy us (the sheep.) It's not enough unfortunately to think of the devil as just an evil force bent on nondescript bad acts; he wants to keep us from God for all eternity.

How do we stop this from happening? We need to stay close to the shepherd. Jesus is the embodiment of love, to be sure, but part of that love is protection. He is the savior who goes off to take back the one stray sheep. He is the savior who will lead us in victory in the end times. Most importantly, Jesus is the savior who would rather himself die than allow any of us who want to follow him be taken by the devil. Jesus is more powerful than our frustrations, our inhibitions, and our concerns. He is more powerful than the thief, the murderer, and the destroyer. This is the crux of Affeldt's argument; all we need do is stay close to the shepherd and he will guide us down the path he knows well.