Friday, June 04, 2010

The devil or the umpire stole his perfect game

He pitched the perfect game, then the umpire stole it.

Everyone of us can can can relate to what happened this week to a Detroit pitcher who pitched the perfect game, only to have it stolen from him by an admitted bad call from the umpire. Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had pitched the perfect game against Cleveland and he was down to the final out. But a botched call by an umpire blew his chance to make it into the history books as only the 21st person in MLB league history, and the first ever Detroit Tiger to pitch the perfect game.

The umpire reviewed the video and admitted he made a bad call; in tears he apologized. The fans protested, millions watched the video on the Internet; they protested too. Baseball's great names and legends protested, but the baseball commissioner refused to reverse the call. He said mistakes and errors in judgment by umpires is part of the game and a part of life.

Perfection. We all strive to achieve it but it always eludes us. We can't ever seem to get everything just the way we want. Sometimes we make it through an entire day perfectly, then at the last minute, something goes wrong and perfection eludes us. We set a straight path the inevitably gets a crook in it somewhere.

While perfection is a goal for us, it is elusive because we are imperfect by design. We live in an imperfect world and interact with imperfect people similar to ourselves. Bad people, bad calls, and mistakes in judgment mess up our lives, whether done by ourselves or forces outside of our control.

That's a bum deal.

Our joy is knowing that we don't have to be perfect in every way. The beauty of being a child of God is that we have an honest judge who will consider our situation in the end and because of the blood of Christ, reverse our imperfections and declare us sufficient to stand before God, worthy of heaven.

2 Timothy 4:8 (msg) says,".. he's an honest judge. He'll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming."

Had the baseball commissioner in Detroit had this passage in mind, he would have reviewed the video, accepted the umpire's statement of perfection and allowed Mr. Galarraga to take his place in history as the first Detroit pitcher to ever pitch a perfect game.

Thankfully, if the devil tries to steal our perfect day, we have a loving God who will do right by us and straighten it out.

We won't ever be perfect, but God will love us perfectly.

That's fine with me.

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