What would you do? You make the choice.
Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one.
Read it anyway.
My question is: Would you have made the same choice?
At a fundraising for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the former students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by those who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child."
Then he told the following story:
Shay and his father walked past some boys playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most would not want someone like Shay on their team, but he also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.
Shay's father approached one of the boys and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."
Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His father watched with a tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled next at bat.
Do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because he didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.
As Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right to the pitcher.
The game would now be over. The pitcher could easily throw the ball to the first baseman. Shay would be out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Shay scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed, and made it to first base.
Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second. By the time he came to second base, the right fielder had the ball, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay"
He reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!"
As he rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.
"That day," said his father, with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world."
Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them.
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Here is my response:
I'd do the same . . . as, I believe, most people would.
For the players that day, it was just a game that, win or lose, they'd soon forget . . . but as it is, the story lives on, and every player that day, on both teams, became “little heroes.”
This story shows something, however, very philosophical. This story—and every real-life situation in which one person helps another at his/her own possible loss or danger—proves that the theory of Evolution is not true.
How? Simple . . . if Evolution were true, then the concept of the "survival of the fittest" would be hard-wired into every human, and we'd all do whatever we needed to do to "survive and thrive." Or, “win at all costs.”
However, every time a human risks the loss of something, winning a game, or something more substantial, like risking their safety or even their lives to help someone else, this goes directly against the very basis of Evolutionary theory: the survival of the fittest.
Every time a person sacrifices or risks their personal achievement, safety, or lives for someone else, they are acting like their creator, God, not like the animals of the jungles of Evolution.
You see, God in His love sacrificed His Son to take the place of death for us sinners . . . this is not "survival of the fittest" — it is "sacrifice of the fittest" for the sake of the weak.
The perfect, most fit person in the universe saw “spiritually-disabled children” all over the earth . . . and He “threw the game” to make us happy . . . He did this by sending His perfect Son to die the death that each of us really deserve, and when we accept what Jesus did for us on that “game day,” we can leave the park as winners.
Think for a second of how the story would have been if at the end of the game, the learning-disabled child had shouted at all of the other ball players that day and said, “I hate you . . . I don’t care what you sacrificed for me. You are all a bunch of jerks.”
Yet, in essence, that is what humans do when they reject the sacrifice of God that happened on the biggest “game day” of all.
So, my dear Coffee Talk Reader, let me ask you again:
When given the opportunity to witness for Christ, what would you do?
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