Working Your Part

Good job, good job … in a close game an R.B.I. is just as good as a hit—applauded my daughter’s softball coach. Her teammates cheered in agreement, “Yeay, Emma!” Though narrowly thrown out at first base, she drove in a lead-changing runner from third base. It was marked down as a fielder’s choice in the box score, but Emma showed a question mark on her face. “Dad, what’s an R.B.I.?” she asked me through the chain link fence as I sat in the drizzle in a faded blue fold-out chair. This was her first at-bat in her first game in her first season of softball. “An R.B.I. is a run-batted-in … you forced the other team to make a throw to first base to get you out so that your teammate could score. In a close game, an R.B.I. is as good as a hit. You worked your part so the team could succeed.” “Oh.” The significance still hadn’t dawned on the rookie.

“Oh!” Working your part so the team could succeed—the significance still hasn’t fully dawned on the veteran either. The month of May brings many things—flowers, pollen, end-of-the-year testing, graduation, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day—but it also brings analogies for life from the ball field. Though most of us do not wear team jerseys anymore, we are still players on many teams: family, work, community, church, etc. Yet, do we often realize that our individual contribution plays a larger role in the team’s success? Our participation sets into motion, creates the space, offers the time, holds back the opposition so that success, growth, advancement, progress, unity can mark a run scored in the cosmic box score. It is never just a random at-bat that leaves no mark in the overall team experience—it is one of relatively few at-bats that causes the other team to expend the energy to pitch and catch, that elevates the pitch count, that weakens the pitcher’s arm for later innings, that could allow her fastball to lose some steam, that could allow another player make contact with a pitch she could not turn on in earlier innings, that requires the shortstop to have to run deep into the gap to field the groundball, that leaves her off balance so that her throw to first base is off-target, that allows the game winning runner to reach third, so that when a rookie approaches the plate for the first time her humble contribution scores the lead-changing run. There is great significance in working your part so the team can succeed.

Paul said it this way, “the whole body [think: ‘team!’], being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16). “Oh.”

What is your part? What is your role? What is your contribution? What is your piece? Yours is not a random at-bat; it is one of relatively few that counts within the entire flow of the team and the conclusion of the game. Work your part so that the team can succeed. Individual stats are meaningless when compared to the end result of the team. “Wow!” May the significance fully dawn on all of us.

Kevin Rees, May 1, 2009