It is Opening Day for Major League baseball. Everyone has an opportunity to win. Unless the year is 1969 and the team is the New York Mets.
In 1968 the Mets had finished ninth out of ten teams in the National League. How many ways can you spell “loser”? As the `69 season began people were already nailing the coffin shut on the Mets and their manager, Gil Hodges. They were a 100-1 long shot![1]
Oh, what a difference a year makes! Gil Hodges guided his team to the National League Pennant and then the World Series Championship. The "Amazing Mets" went from worst to first. How did Gil Hodges do it? More importantly, how do we do it? How can we see our failures become success? Proverbs points the way:
I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. I know where to discover knowledge and discernment … Good advice and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine. Because of me, kings reign, and rulers make just laws … Unending riches, honor, wealth, and justice are mine to distribute. My gifts are better than the purest gold, my wages better than sterling silver! I walk in righteousness, in paths of justice ... Happy are those who listen to me, watching for me daily at my gates, waiting for me outside my home! For whoever finds me finds life and wins approval from the LORD. But those who miss me have injured themselves. All who hate me love death. (Proverbs 8:12,13-15,18-20,34-36 NLT)
Wisdom is what God uses to help turn around a bad season in life. Wisdom offers good judgment, discernment, success, strength, and approval from God. Sounds like the combination needed for going from worst to first in any endeavor!
Wisdom is not hard to find. She walks along God's path of righteousness and justice. Do you want to meet her? Open up the Bible and read the Proverbs. Why not take some time today to stop by Wisdom’s door in Proverbs 8. God has all the help you need for Opening Day . . . or for any day!
My Prayer: Lord, open my eyes to see your wisdom for my challenges today.
[1] 100-1 odds as told by Stanley Cohen in A Magic Summer: The `69 Mets, p. 267.