God Provides for Our Needs

Today’s reading: 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Back when I was about 12,  I used to ride my bike past the mansions on Ocean Drive and dream of one day living in such luxury. No, I did more than dream about this. I obsessed about it.

I knew all my sports heroes made millions of dollars and had similar mansions, so I  followed them with all my soul.  Tennis and baseball became my life. I practiced both sports relentlessly, and I studied them with great vigour.

I figured I would earn my first set of riches at Wimbledon (where teenage stars are still born nearly every year) and then I would make it big in baseball with the Houston Astros.  After winning a Grand Slam and World Series or two (or, heck, winning didn’t even matter really. All I was after was the money, actually),  I would then “retire” at age 35 and live the rest of my life, carefree, on Ocean Drive: five cars, two or three state-of-the-art television rooms, an indoor tennis court and/or batting cage and/or bowling alley, gourmet  chefs cooking delicious meals daily for my friends and me, and all the rest.

None of that came to fruition, of course.

I’m sure my friends on my current tennis team are laughing at the thought I could have ever played at Wimbledon.  And I realized baseball probably wasn’t my game after all  when I reached “Pony League” age and had trouble adjusting to the larger field.

Owning a mansion is no longer my goal in life.  It actually doesn’t even appeal to me one bit these days. I’ve definitely learned the lesson of today’s reading:

“As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (Verse 16)

But it wasn’t just my athletic incompetence that taught me this lesson.

I am also grateful for the life story of the great baseball pitcher J.R. Richard. His struggles began at about the same time I was getting serious about my mansion.  So, though he is nearly 20 years older than me and I have certainly never met him , I sometimes think of he and I as having grown up together.

J.R.’s fastball was the best in baseball from about 1975 to 1980. And he played for my beloved Houston Astros! So I worshiped him. When he would pitch on television, I video taped the games and always wore the tapes out afterward, rewinding them hundreds of times to study J.R.’s windup and grip. My coaches always warned me not to try to throw as hard as he did, but I ignored them, of course. I was determined to be exactly like J.R. That was the key to my mansion!

But one day in the middle of the 1980’s season (which would leave the Astros just one base hit shy of the World Series) I heard play-by-play announcers say J.R. Richard had apparently had a stroke during his pre-game workouts. He was in the hospital, and things weren’t looking good.

J.R. survived the stroke, but he never played in another major league game.  For the next few years, I kept hearing report after report of how his riches were dwindling. First he got swindled for several hundred thousand in an “investment” scheme. Then he went through two divorces, making huge settlement payments to both wives.

Finally, in about 1994 — just as I was having serious doubts about my own “career” in radio — a Houston newspaper reporter wrote an article about discovering the great J.R. Richard homeless. His new address was a freeway bridge. (Highway 59 and Beechnut. I’ve driven there several times as a salute to my hero.)

The next I read of J.R. he had become involved with The New Testament Church in Houston and had turned his life and his troubles to God. The pastor at that church helped him find a job laying asphalt and, eventually, J.R. became a minister at the church.

I admit that I’ve not seen much news about J.R. in the last few years, but last I heard, he was becoming a quiet force for good in Houston, working through his church and many financial backers to fund youth baseball programs throughout the city. (Presumably this means a lot of youngsters are ending up with some one-on-one time with one of the greatest to ever play the game! Talk about inspiring! Come to think of it, working on J.R.’s asphalt crew had to be an inspiration, too.))

It’s been said that J.R. is “happier than ever” with the life he’s lead since his baseball days.  That line may have been hard for me to believe back in 1980, when I was dreaming about my mansion.

But I certainly understand it now.

Thanks be to God for J.R. Richard’s heroic life. May I (and we) continue learning from his example.