Several years ago my oldest daughter picked up a softball for the first time and set her eye on the pitcher’s circle. It was not the position I hoped she’d choose. Attempting to change her mind, I told tales of painful line drives, talked about the pressure to perform. I was hoping for a different choice. Third base sounded good. Maybe shortstop. The outfield is pretty safe. My words were wasted. She wasn’t deterred. Pitcher’s circle it was.
Scores of times she’s vowed to quit. Wailed about not being good enough. Her pitches weren’t fast enough. Her curveball didn’t curve enough. Her rise ball dropped. Her drop ball rose. Over the years, in answer to her whines, wails, and frustrations, I’ve heard my husband repeat the same phrases. “Fundamentals. First position. Second position. Be sure you close the door.”
It’s a series of exercises her first pitching coach would put her through at the start of her lesson. Placing a ball in her hand, he would say, “First position. Second position. Do it again.” Over and over she would go through those two motions. First position opened the door. Second position, if done correctly, closed the door. The ball would never leave her hand. She hated every minute of it.
They were the most productive lessons she ever had. Those motions are essential for her speed and accuracy–fastball, screwball, or anything in between. Open the door. Close the door. Every time. And now, when she walks into the circle and lines her foot up on that rubber strip, she has only to think about which pitch the coach called and ensuring it sails inside, outside, or down the middle. She doesn’t have to worry about her form, her feet, or where everything will land when she is done. Why? Because the fundamentals of pitching are buried deeply in mind and muscles. She has heard and practiced them over and over until they are her first response. First position. Second position. Don’t forget to close the door.
I’ve spent my whole life learning a similar lesson. Not about playing a ballgame. About winning at spiritual warfare. First position–pray about everything. All of it. Even when it seems simple and easily decided. Even when you already know the answer. Get in the habit of including God in every choice, every decision, every plan. Even if it’s just about what to have for dinner. Get in the habit of conversing with God. Speak and listen. Learn to know His voice. Talk with Him so often that He knows yours. (I Thessalonians 5:17; Philippians 4:6; Romans 12:12; Psalm 116:1-2)
That’s what Elijah did. In I Kings 17, the miraculous work of God to restore a boy’s life through Elijah is recorded. There was no rhyme or reason to the boy’s illness. It seemed so unfair. The widow had done everything she could for Elijah. Stepped out in faith and gave him water and her last loaf of bread. Her oil and flour were never empty, but their constancy couldn’t heal her deathly ill boy. Her faith, bolstered by the ready flour and oil, died with the final breath of her boy.
Rushing at Elijah, she railed against him, her anguish and grief pouring out in words of anger. Surely it was his fault her son had died. Why had he come to their lives in the first place? Why had he saved their lives from famine and drought only to kill her son? Was it judgment for her past iniquities? Was the whole thing an elaborate scheme to rain punishment on her head? If that was why he’d come, he could leave. She wanted nothing more to do with him. But Elijah wasn’t finished.
Taking her son, he carried the boy to his bed, laid him there, and immediately went to first position. Prayer. Elijah didn’t understand the situation. He didn’t know why the obedient widow had lost her son. He couldn’t explain to her the intricacies of what God was about to do. He just did what he’d been doing since before God sent him to the courts of Ahab with the prophecy of drought. Elijah prayed. And God heard him.
He already knew the voice of Elijah. Very well. They were in constant communication. And God knew Elijah was ready for the second position. Obedience. God knew that Elijah would do whatever He told Him to do. He always had. Trembling as he stood before Ahab, Elijah had straightened his spine, stiffened his knees, and prophesied a drought of epic proportions. Anxious as he headed out to the brook called Cherith, Elijah took a deep breath, chose a walking stick, and trudged on. Concerned the ravens, disgusting birds that they were, might bring him only bits and pieces of leftovers when the mood struck them, Elijah still sat patiently by the brook and daily waited for his grocery delivery. When the brook dried up and God sent Elijah off on another journey that seemed like a wild goose chase. He picked up his walking stick and traveled, said the words he was told to say, made the promises God said he should make. He did everything God told Him to do, exactly as he was told to do it. So, when God saw Elijah fall into first position on his knees and heard the voice of Elijah raised in prayer, God already knew Elijah was poised to spring into second position. Elijah was going to obey God.
No matter what He told Him to do. No matter how crazy it sounded. No matter who made fun of him. No matter if anyone else did it or not. Elijah was going to obey God. Bowing over the child in urgency and fervency, praying from the depths of his being, Elijah begged God to return life to that boy. He’s willing to do anything for it. Anything for this widow to see that his God is real and true and trustworthy. (I Kings 17)
When the boy suddenly sucked in a breath and opened his eyes, it must have seemed like an anomaly. I wonder if Elijah was surprised. Ready to jump into action at God’s certain command, surely he was surprised when no unorthodox orders echoed back from Heaven. Surprised or not, one fact remains, if God had asked Elijah to do something, he’d have done it. Just like he always did. It was his habit. Prayer. Obedience. Close the door. Elijah had been practicing it for years. It was second nature. An instinctive response to every situation. Prayer and obedience were how he closed the door against all the things that would draw him aside, tempt him into turning away, or turn him back from following God. They were not a certainty that he would never face those temptations or distractions, they were a surety that he knew what to do when they occurred.
And they would occur. It is easy to read the Biblical accounts of prophets and preachers, teachers and saints, and lose sight of them as human beings. We hold them up as paragons of virtue. Because we don’t read of every temptation that accosted their minds, hearts, and bodies, we assume they were never tempted as we are. Untrue. Two chapters later we find Elijah terrified, running for his life, flopping down under a juniper tree, and asking for death. He was done. Physically exhausted. Emotionally drained. Jezebel had issued a wanted bulletin for his life–alive if necessary, preferably dead. Not one person had come running to him with offers of safety, help, or direction. He felt alone. Abandoned. He was tired in every imaginable way. He just wanted to die and be done with it.
Yet even in that dark place, Elijah never left his fundamentals. Slouched under that tree in the dregs of exhaustion and depression, Elijah still prayed. In one short sentence, he brings before God his physical weariness, his emotional emptiness, his spiritual dryness and asks to die. He can’t do it. He doesn’t even want to anymore. The idea that he was stronger, better, more capable than all the men who had held this role before him was clearly off the mark. Please can he just die and be done now? (I Kings 19)
God wasn’t done with Elijah. He had so much more to do. Jezebel’s wanted bulletin was destined to go unfulfilled. The blade of a sword, the tip of an arrow, the hangman’s noose would never touch Elijah. He didn’t know that. He didn’t need to know it. Elijah simply needed to follow the steps, stick with the fundamentals. Pray. Obey. Close the door on the temptation to give in, give up, give over. Close the door on the mind games the evil one was playing telling him he had been abandoned by everyone, persuading him he was the only one serving God, pressing him to quit praying, quit obeying, quit living. Because that is what the evil one does.
At every juncture, every crossroads, every possible moment he can, the evil one will slip in and attack your soul. He will come at you with the things of the world and tell you to lighten up, lower your standards, loosen your morals. He will assault your mind, and attack your relationship with God and others. He’ll tell you everyone hates you. He’ll say you are alone. He will browbeat and badger until you feel like giving in. Unless you stick to the fundamentals. Unless you hit your knees in prayer and spring to your heels in obedience. Unless you close the door. (John 8:44; Ephesians 4:26-27; I Corinthians 10:13; Mark 7:20-23)
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve seen my daughter get rattled in the circle. Not every day is her day. Sometimes the umpire puts a crick in her armor, sees a strike that looks like a ball. Sometimes she gets in her own head, compares herself to the other team’s pitcher and things go pear-shaped. In those moments, admittedly, I holler things across the field. Things she needs to hear from her Momma. “Take a deep breath. Relax. You know what to do. You can do this.” Essentially, first position. Second position. Close the stinkin’ door!
The same applies to you. In your moments of exhaustion, frustration, fear, and self-doubt, when the enemy has found a way to sneak past all your defenses, make you feel alone, unworthy, unnecessary, when you are over it, done, ready to quit, don’t. God has heard all those prayers you’ve prayed. He has seen all those times you jumped to your feet and readily obeyed His voice when it was unpopular, unfamiliar, unpleasant. He’s watched you slam the door in the face of temptation over and over again with your faithful practice of prayer and obedience. And God is in your cheering section. He’s hollering across the terrain of your life, encouraging you not to give up, not to quit, not to be discouraged. So take a moment, quiet your soul, and do what you know works mightily against every stronghold of the enemy. First position. Second position. Prayer. Obedience. And don’t forget to shut the door! (Luke 11:28; II Corinthians 10:4; Matthew 26:41; Hebrews 4:15-16)
Shut the door.