Approved…

Every day I am “approved”. And every day it feels good. It comes from a strange place though.

My credit card company.

Every day I buy a coffee, a coke or a sandwich and every day when I give them my credit card I have a sense of angst. Angst that it will come back “declined”. Not because I don’t have any room on the card or anything like that. It’s paid off every month. It comes from no rational place. It comes from growing up in a stressful financial environment. (One which my dad handled with unbelievable class and died with zero debt to his name). But there were times when we just didn’t have enough. And times when one bill got paid and another didn’t. Angst. What if it’s declined. I would take it personally…it would be “me” that’s declined. Even though I know it would be some sort of error, I would feel a personal judgment. And so I always carry cash with me…just in case. I have cash in my wallet that I haven’t used for months and months…it’s my insurance policy against my angst. The angst of wanting “approved”.

So to this day there are two ways I feel rich. When I get fast food…because all my friends families would stop at McDonalds after a game and we never could. To think that I can get fast food anytime I want makes me feel rich. And then every day, when I use my card, I have just a little bit of angst. And then…it happens…that word flashes across the screen. “Approved”. And I feel rich.

When I was 12 I played in a little league world series qualifying tournament. I remember playing against a team from Japan and they had a right handed pitcher that was huge and we had no chance. He threw it so hard. We lost bad! We played them in a double header though so when it came to the second game we figured we would get them in that game.

Until…the same pitcher came up. And pitched the second game left handed.

The bottom of the fourth came and I was the 2nd batter. The guy in front of me had walked so he was on first base. Dwayne. Dwayne was one of my best friends back then. We played a lot of ball together.

The count was 3-1 and the next pitch I hit so low and hard that the pitcher had to duck. And then…it left the park. Dwayne was going nuts circling the bases in front of me and the whole team was waiting at home plate jumping all over me. The goliath was human.

But that wasn’t the greatest moment. The greatest moment was coach coming down and talking to me on the bench after that happened and he said, “Looks like the people sitting around your dad have to hold him down he’s flying so high”.

I wasn’t even sure my dad was there. But to have him there, and have him proud…to have his “approval”…now THAT was a feeling I’ll never forget. Way more than the homerun.

You know how often I think about that? Nearly every day. You know what reminds me of that every day? The credit card angst. Every day I get “approved” on my purchase, I think of dad and how proud of me he was that day. How he “approved” of me.

How much more then when I realize I am “approved” by the King of the universe. “…we have been approved by Christ…” 1 Thess