A man stopped to watch a little league baseball game one afternoon. He leaned over to a boy sitting in the dugout and asked what the score was.

"Eighteen to nothing — we're behind," the boy said cheerfully.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the man. "I'll bet you're discouraged."

The boy looked up at him like. "Why should I be discouraged? We haven't even gotten up to bat yet!"

I love that. There is something almost theological about that child's refusal to read the scoreboard as the final word.

The American diplomat Clare Boothe Luce once said: "There are no hopeless situations — there are only people who have grown hopeless about them." Which is easier said than done, of course. But it points to something true. Hopelessness is often less about the actual situation and more about what we have decided the situation means.

The prophet Isaiah was writing to a community that had every reason to be discouraged. Their city had been destroyed. Their temple burned. They were living in exile, far from home, with no obvious path back. And into that darkness God spoke: "I am about to do a new thing. Do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19)

Do you not perceive it? The game isn't over.

Whatever you are facing today — that word is still in play.

Prayer: Forgive us, O God, for the times we have decided the situation is hopeless before you have had the last word. Open our eyes to the new thing you are doing — even now, even here, even in this. Amen.

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Today’s message was written by my friend, Roger Kunkel, founder of Dial Hope.

Friend of Dial Hope, how are you dealing with worry? Worry is a major contributor to physical illness. But we must not confuse worry with concern. We should be concerned about the conditions of the world, the plight of the poor, the diseased, the abuse of children. We should be concerned about our health. Sometimes worry is destructive. God's resources are at our own disposal, and God is anxious to help, for worry cannot live in an atmosphere saturated with God's unconditional love. Remember these words of scripture, the Bible, which I call the Manufacturer's Handbook: 

Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your own requests be made to God (Philippians 4:6). 

I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:15). 

Cast all your anxiety on God … because God cares for you (l Peter 5:7). 

My grace is sufficient for you (Il Corinthians 12:9). 

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28). 

The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid (Hebrews 13:6). 

Friend of Dial Hope, when you and God are working together, you can live without worry! 

Let us pray: God of gentle dreams and awesome space, cultivate in our hearts a faith that is tall and sure. Create in us a spirit that overcomes hopelessness. No mind is without doubt or worry and we would not ask for that. May we believe enough in your Spirit of Grace to risk the hurt of love in order to find the joy of love. In Jesus' name. Amen. 

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My first impression was that Matt might be slightly unhinged. He rarely missed a Sunday at church, but he was very much a loner. Definitely a man of very few words. 

But I learned pretty quickly that Matt had a gift for working with children. They adored him. Wherever he went around the church campus there would be a pack of kids trailing behind him, calling out "Mr. Matt! Mr. Matt!" He became one of the most reliable volunteers in our nursery — steady, gentle, completely devoted to those kids.

In another congregation, a homeless man wandered in off the street one day. He had a story, as people in need often do. We helped him as best we could. At the end of our conversation he said, "Thank you, Pastor. I'll see you on Sunday." And he showed up. And the next Sunday. And the next. He didn't always dress well. Sometimes he didn't smell particularly well either. But he had a singing voice that was nothing less than soul-stirring. By the time I left that congregation he was offering solos at both of our worship services, and he was deeply loved.

Matt taught me something. So did the man with the beautiful voice. They arrived looking like question marks and turned out to be answers to prayers we hadn't even known how to pray. I try to remember that now whenever someone unexpected walks through the door — because I have learned, more than once, that God often does his most surprising work through the most surprising people.

I wonder - who God might be sending your way right now… 

It might be worth a second look. You never know who might be carrying exactly the gift you didn't know you needed.

Prayer: Loving God, keep us open to the people you bring across our path — especially the ones who surprise us. Give us eyes to see the gifts they carry. And make our communities places where everyone who comes finds a home. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Flannery O'Connor once said of the Apostle Paul: "I reckon the Lord knew that the only way to make a Christian out of that one was to knock him off his horse."

That makes me smile. 

No doubt, Paul’s conversion was dramatic — a blinding light on the road to Damascus, a voice from heaven, three days without sight. Most of us don't have a story like that. For most of us it is much more subtle. A tug at the heart. A stirring in the soul. A pang of conscience. The quiet words of someone we love and trust. A slow turning rather than a sudden knock.

And yet — however it happens — something shifts. Something opens. The person we were heading toward becoming is no longer quite the person we want to be.

I have heard enough of your stories over the years to know that God is remarkably creative in the ways he gets through to us. Some of you have your own version of being knocked off the horse. Others have been gently, persistently nudged in a new direction over many years.

What matters is not the method. What matters is the turning. And the God who knocked Paul off his horse is the same God who is patient enough to wait for the rest of us to find our way around. I find that deeply comforting. Because most of us are not dramatic conversion stories. We are slow turners — people who move toward God gradually, haltingly, sometimes taking two steps forward and one step back. And yet that same pursuing love is at work in us. Meeting us where we are. Waiting. Nudging. Never giving up.

Prayer: God of grace, you know exactly what it takes to get through to each of us. However you are working in our lives right now — dramatically or quietly — give us the grace to respond. We want to turn toward you. Amen.

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In the early 1970s, a man named Jim Reid moved to Florida to work as a surveyor for Disney World. In his spare time he took up scuba diving, searching for treasure in old shipwrecks. One day, on a whim, he dove into a water hazard at a local golf course.

He found thousands of golf balls.

The local pro offered him ten cents a ball for everything he could retrieve. Reid discovered he could make in one day what he earned in a week as a surveyor. So he quit his job, started a business, and called it Second Chance. By 1994 he sold it for five million dollars.

The pastor and writer King Duncan picked up on that story and said: "Jim Reid is not the only one who specializes in finding that which is lost. God is the ultimate finder of that which others have marked off as irretrievable. What God finds is not lost golf balls — but lost people."

That line has stayed with me. Because many of us, if we are honest, at some point in our lives, have felt beyond redemption.

And there is something in us that almost believed it. That agreed with the verdict. That wondered whether the damage was too deep or the distance too great for any of it to be retrieved.

But the gospel keeps insisting otherwise. It keeps telling the story of the one who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. The father who sees his son while he is still a long way off and runs to meet him. The God who finds Saul on the road to Damascus — of all people — and says, you are my chosen instrument.

And — here we are. Found. Retrieved. Given another chance.

The gospel has always been in the second chance business. It has never run out of inventory.

Prayer: We thank you, O God, for finding us when we were lost — for retrieving what others might have left behind. You specialize in second chances. May we never take ours for granted, and may we extend that same grace to others; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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