Softball Bible Quotes

What that means, in a practical way, is that we strive to know and love a few people deeply. We don’t have to distribute gospel tracts to strangers to be effective evangelists; we just have to be present to a few people who are in our lives. We go to their birthday parties. We watch them play softball. We drink coffee with them at the coffee shop. We laugh when they laugh and cry when they cry. And, in the process, we get to be salt and light to them. Even if we never quote the Bible to them or say a prayer with them, we are the presence of Christ to them.

All over America, you see women in yoga pants and men in sweatpants, even when they are not on their way to or from a yoga class or softball field. When I fly, I see so many sweat suits – even pajamas – on my fellow travelers that it’s as though the airplane were the sleeper car of a train bound for summer camp or a gym in the sky, not a public space for business people and vacationers.

One of my great moments in camp,’ recalled child internee Kari Torjesen Malcolm, ‘came when I was alone in a kitchen, singlehandedly trying to kill hundreds of flies before 600 people would file in for their rations. Then Eric Liddell was passing by. I knew him well, both as my softball coach and as a Bible teacher. Now he stopped in and gave me his undivided attention for a few charged moments. With his steel-blue, penetrating and laughing eyes and disarming smile, he had my complete attention. He told me that as a Christian I was bringing people nearer Christ by doing something as simple as killing flies for them. I had heard him teach that we either repel people from Christ or bring them closer. Then he heartily thanked me for what I was doing just then with no one but God to notice what I was doing, or to give me proper credit.