Seeking to nurture your spiritual growth and build your faith? Download Abide for faith-based meditations. Explore practices like centering prayer & meditation on biblical themes. Find peace & meaning with God’s Word.
Share the post "Not a Fair-weather Fan: What Baseball Teaches Us About Enduring Faith "
I’m a big baseball fan. I love going to games, which hardly ever happens since I live in Orlando and there are no Major League teams close by. But I subscribe to MLB.com and watch my team, the Oakland A’s, as often as I can. Lately, being an A’s fan hasn’t been easy. We’ve experienced more disappointment than triumph. But isn’t that a lot like life sometimes? When the wins aren’t coming, how do we keep believing in our team? Are you a fair-weather fan?
What Is a Fair-weather Fan?
The simplest explanation of a fair-weather fan is one who supports a team as long as they are doing well. When things start going south, they bail. I’ll stick with my team as an example, since the ups and downs have been so dramatic.
In the early 1970s, the A’s won back-to-back-to-back championships. They made it to the postseason five years in a row. Supporting the team then was easy; everyone loved them. The A’s experienced a lot of success in the next couple of decades, making it to the postseason 21 times in 30 years.
Then came 2022.
The A’s lost 102 games in what ownership called a rebuild. In 2023, they lost 112. In a stadium that holds just shy of 50,000 people, the average attendance in 2023 was 10,276. Compared to almost 36,000 the year after they won their last World Series, it’s evident that support has significantly dropped since their earlier success.
But we’re not just talking about baseball here. What happens to your faith when your circumstances take a turn for the worse? God isn’t a baseball team whose failures and successes come and go. He’s always the same, and He’s always faithful. But life can cause us to question whether God is good. That’s not unusual, but it is something that needs to be addressed.
Three Ways to Cultivate Enduring Faith
Remember the Character of God
A baseball team’s fortunes rise and fall. Sometimes that can be due to injuries to key players, sometimes it’s because of ownership. It can be any number of reasons. For me, I grew up in Oakland, so I forged a bond with the A’s when I was very young. Though the losses can be frustrating, I think about the young guys now playing and want them to succeed. I’m not a fair-weather fan because I’ve built a loyalty that can’t be broken by a few bad seasons.
In our faith, the underlying truth that we cling to when life gets hard is that God is good. Romans 8:28 (NIV) assures us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” The Apostle Paul certainly had his ups and downs. He listed them in 2 Corinthians 11. Here are just a few:
- Imprisoned frequently
- Flogged repeatedly
- Exposed to death again and again
- Received 39 lashes five different times
- Was beaten with rods three different times
- Pelted with stones
- Shipwrecked three different times
The list goes on, but suffice it to say, Paul understood suffering. And he never gave up on God. He was no fair-weather fan in his faith. He wrote again and again of God’s grace, faithfulness, and love.
Have an Open Mind Toward Learning New Things About God
In baseball, it’s always sad when a team loses a popular player. For me, that’s the MO of the A’s organization. Their payroll is notoriously low so when a good player starts commanding a higher salary, they’re sold off. But sometimes the new players coming in from the Minor Leagues bring an excitement of their own. They’re new, and they’re still learning, but their potential can excite people—if we let it.
Letting go of our old ways of seeing God can be hard. Maybe we expect God to act toward us the same way He acted toward someone else. He allowed many women in the Bible to become pregnant when they thought it was impossible. Jesus healed a man born blind. He caused a coin to be pulled out of a fish’s mouth to pay taxes! But I have friends who could never have biological children, lost loved ones to disease, or experienced crippling financial hardship.
We might expect God to always fix things. But what God does can look very different. Isaiah 43:19 says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” When we say God was faithful in the past and He will be faithful in the future, that doesn’t mean that He will do things in the same exact way. One time, He told Moses to strike a rock to produce water; another time He told Moses to just speak to the rock. God had His reasons for wanting things done two different ways. Unfortunately, Moses, frustrated with God’s people, struck the rock the second time as well and had to live with the consequences of his disobedience.
Had God ever parted the sea before opening the waters for the Israelites to pass through? No. You can keep from being a fair-weather fan as you look for God to move in ways you’ve never experienced before.
Keep Your Heart from Growing Hard
I admit it. I’ve shed tears when the A’s let go of a favorite player. I might’ve called it quits when we lost Reggie Jackson to the Yankees (our arch nemesis in the day) back in 1977. Or when Marcus Semien left us for the Texas Rangers, a division rival, in 2021. Both went on to do great things for their new teams. But I had to let those disappointments go.
When life gets hard, when disappointments come—which they inevitably do—draw near to God. Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” He sees, He understands, and He will redeem every situation. Psalm 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry.”
Keep talking to God about your disappointments. You won’t hurt His feelings. Let Him comfort you. In Ezekiel 36:26 the Lord says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Let God keep your heart soft, so you don’t become a fair-weather fan in your faith.
A Meditation for Reflection
Listen now to a short segment of this Abide meditation based on Ezekiel 36:26. Let God speak to your heart about having a soft heart.
It’s 2024, a long way removed from the A’s last World Series victory, but just a few years from their last postseason appearance. I’ll keep rooting for them, watching the young guys grow and develop, and avoid comments on the A’s feeds on social media where the hecklers only want wins.
In life, like baseball, we all experience triumphs and losses. Keep from becoming a fair-weather fan in your faith by remembering who God is, allowing Him to work in new ways, and keeping your heart soft toward Him.
Let Abide help you keep from being a fair-weather fan. Our more than 1500 guided meditations, like the one above, all exist to help you grow closer to God. Download the app and start a premium subscription. This will unlock our entire library of content. Use this coupon for 25% off.
Stephanie Reeves is the senior editor for Abide. She and her husband live in Orlando, Fla., as do their three adult children and one adorable grandson.
Share the post "Not a Fair-weather Fan: What Baseball Teaches Us About Enduring Faith "
