Sometimes the world is based on half-truths, and I'm OK with that!

I went to a baseball game tonight, and while I was there I couldn't help but think how "dishonest" the sport is. First off the obvious. Runners try to "steal" bases. Groan, I know. But the pitcher tries to trick the batter, too. The curve ball looks straight then pulls away from you when you try to hit it. The sinker comes in high then suddenly drops below your swing. Even the change up is something meant to confuse and mislead you, hoping to sneak by when you're looking for something else. Coaches will signal their players to bunt, hit, or steal by using simple signals. In case the other team is watching, though, they bury it inside a bunch of other meaningless gestures. Ya gotta wonder, though, who's at fault: the coach making the signal or the other team trying to "steal" it.

You can name any sport and they all have things like this going on. They "fake" passes in football, sucker you in by sacrificing a pawn in chess, and razzle-dazzle in basketball. The thing is, each of these activities is a lot like a "war" between two or more people or groups of people, and all's fair in war (I'm not so sure about that love part). It's understood that when you are engaged in such an activity that normal honesty rules are suspended, at least in a small way.

I don't know if I would want it to be otherwise, because the magic mirror had it right. When you read a story without a villain, it is pretty boring, Girl meets prince, falls in love, live happily ever after. How often would you want to read this over and over? Yet put a bad guy in the story and it makes all the difference. Same with the half-truths in sports. We admire teams with more skill, who are able to overcome opponents with more ability because they outsmarted them. If there was a complete removal of posturing and intimidation based on perceptions, then the game would be determined by sheer chance. time. or who's owner had the deeper pocketbooks and could buy the better players.

Example from history - until the time of the Civil War, and even during the early part of that war, generals would often invite their opponents into battles. They would gather at the appointed time, line up, and shoot at each other in nice tidy rows. To tight differently was considered "dishonest" even by your own side. Thus thousands and thousands of young men were cut down needlessly. War is crazy enough! But when a "civilized" general went up against a more modem opponent who might have had less men and not as good arms, the modem opponent chewed him up. That's what really brought this to an end in history. The civil war, by the way, where Americans lined up against Americans in this "civilized" way cost us about 500,000 lives, far more than any other war in our nation's history. As opposed to our revolutionary war, where we fought more "modem" and less than 5,000 Americans were killed.

Ok Randy, so what? We aren't engaged in a war today. Ah, hut we are of course. We fight against the devil. The devil will cheat and lie and do whatever it takes to bring us down. He will attempt to intimidate us and trick us into fooling he can't be beat. He fights in an uncivilized manner, sniping out from many spots in our daily lives. Do we fight him back the same way? Surely we don't let him mow us down like wheat?

That's why armies fought that crazy way for hundreds of years, chewing themselves to death. Because they failed to recognize you fight different based on who your enemy is. I don't bring bombs to a baseball game, each contest has its own context and it's o\\n weapons. Baseball uses bats and gloves and, well, baseballs! Games aren't life and death struggles, either. While the two may be similar, they are not. Fighting a war with bats and gloves won't be very effective. And lighting the devil is certainly not a game'

But it's not a carnal war, either. It's a spiritual war, and you fight with spiritual weapons. Bombs won't do you any good. And it isn't "civilized", your enemy will not shake hands and come out to a fair fight. You need to study, to stand solid for the faith, and be prepared to get hammered on a carnal level. But for all the grief the devil might deliver you in this world, if you stand firm in the faith you will always win when the score is tallied up in the end!

Randy