See the Prize from the top-- but not to touch it

Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, ... Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there” [Deuteronomy 34:1,4].

The Texas Rangers became the major league Metroplex team, based in Arlington, 40 years ago. Those of us who have been here and remember for that entire time know of more bad times than good, more losses than wins, and too often a team not as good as the sum of its parts. But all that looked to be finally in the past on Friday night. The Promised Land of the World Series trophy was there. They were right on the brink. Twice. But why was Moses not allowed by God to actually enter the Promised Land? Because of 2 hits. When the Israelites were starving for water in the desert, God led him to a rock to which Moses was to speak, and a spring would come bubbling out to supply their needs. But Moses, frustrated and out of patience with the people he was leading, took his rod and struck the rock instead. Twice. Those 2 hits cost him the chance to do what he had spent 40 years working toward. He was allowed to reach the brink of the land of promise upon the mountain top and see the goal. Surely he had never regretted 2 hits with a piece of wood more he did at that point in time.

And surely the Rangers cannot fathom 2 hits with a piece of wood that they regret more than those in the ninth and tenth innings on Friday night. If Moses could have foreseen-- as he had foreseen many other things-- that those 2 hits would cost him his the chance to partake of the prize, he would have forced himself to have a touch more patience. He might have walked rather than allow the hits, even though that also would have gotten his people after him, perhaps trying to pull him from the hill of his delivery. But chances cannot be depended on. They don’t come all the time, though at critical junctures they must be expected. And then they cannot be wasted.

Be careful at those critical moments. Don’t look upon the one rock in the path of the chance of a lifetime, which begins with a spring, and violently push, hit, or throw it in what you think if the quickest way to get past it, or it may end in a fall. Moses did not have another chance. But for the Rangers and ourselves-- we never know.