I love me some baseball stats. I love the fact that baseball can be broken up into individual one-on-one challenges so many times and analyzed on a microscopic level. These little challenges in the game provide so many moments where the game can change at any moment. When playing a game like that, you’ve got to be ready for every single pitch like it’s the key to the game. One slip up can mean the difference between a perfect game and a loss (literally so if you’re Robin Roberts or Rick Wise). Baseball commentators will often throw around the phrase “Fierce Competitor” or something similar to describe players who are particularly good at handling all these moments. These are the guys with such extranormal focus that they’re able to psych themselves up all the time. Maybe they do it by yelling at themselves, or celebrating after every strikeout, or they have little rituals so as to get themselves in the zone. Whatever it is, they’ve found a way to make sure that every single moment is a fight, and a fight they’re prepared to win.

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose uponhim as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Jacob competed with Esau for his father’s blessing, then here we see him literally wrestling with God, and even after this we see him almost bickering back and forth with Esau so as to not accept any help from him. I feel like Jacob would be the kind of friend who would fight you tooth and nail over the check at the restaurant. Jacob is a fierce competitor; he’s had to claw his way for everything in his life, even if it’s come through deceit and trickery at times. While Jacob’s methods aren’t always the most sober, we can take a lesson from his passion. The little moments in our life that we might mail in can mean the difference between establishing a new friendship for Christ or just having another unproductive day. Don’t let the little moments in life pass you by without giving glory to God in some way. Ask someone out to Bible Study; pray at a traffic light; listen to Christian Radio while running; just do something today in a moment today where you otherwise wouldn’t have your mind on God. Be a fierce competitor for the Kingdom, and let God show you the celebrations that can come.