The Famous One

March was one of my favorite months when I was growing up, because it meant the return of another baseball season. My hometown in southeast Georgia was three hours from Daytona Beach, where the Montreal Expos trained, and I saw games there on several occasions. Seeing big-leaguers up close, getting an autograph or two, I was absolutely in awe. I’ll never forget the day my parents took me to see the Expos play the Phillies. Pete Rose was in his first season with the Phils and a big crowd had turned out to see him – so big, in fact, that the game was sold out. I was crushed.

When the regular season came, the highlight of each summer was a trip to Atlanta with my YMCA league to see the Braves play. I adored those Braves, and this was in the late 1970s and ’80s, when they fielded some really bad teams. One year, following the regular season, pitcher Phil Niekro (a future Hall of Famer) came to our town for a charity ribbon-cutting event. He graciously signed autographs afterward, then posed for a photo with me. It was surely the highlight of my life to that point.

I suppose I didn’t realize that these guys were just normal human beings. I certainly didn’t realize that God is the only one truly worthy of worship. (Oh, I heard it every Sunday in church; I just didn't pay much attention – I was more interested in playing and watching baseball.) But as I’ve since learned, God is my creator, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my refuge, my shield, my stronghold, my lamp, my savior. I even have God’s autograph. The Bible says His followers are “a letter from Christ … written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3).

I still follow sports and enjoy seeing a celebrity every now and then. But I know God is the only one whose fame really matters. As Chris Tomlin sings, "You are the Lord, the famous one, the famous one. Great is Your Name in all the earth. The heavens declare, You're glorious, glorious. Great is Your fame beyond the earth.”