Atlanta Braves Star Dansby Swanson Reflects on World Championship: ‘Our Purpose Is To Serve God’
By Movieguide® Staff
Last year, Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson posted a career season and helped his team win their first MLB World Championship since 1995.
Swanson said that the team’s slow start was due to the shortened 2020 season, where they played in 60 regular-season games and 12 playoff games. In 2021, Swanson’s combined games played totaled 193 games.
“We had trained our bodies for a 100 meter sprint, and then all of a sudden, we were going to the 10,000 meter race,” he told Sports Spectrum’s Jason Romano.
Swanson, who is engaged to Chicago Red Stars soccer player Mallory Pugh, said that spending time apart was difficult. However, the 28-year-old athlete said that he and Mallory relied on their faith in God.
“I felt like God was molding me and sculpting me for what’s ahead in life, and it was not easy by any means,” he explained. “I feel like the word throughout the year that I kept hearing from Bobby Magallanes, who’s our assistant hitting coach, and from talking to Terry Evans, our Braves Chaplain leader and kind of like Mallory and I’s personal chaplain, was the word surrender.”
Swanson admitted that trust in the Lord is an everyday challenge and is difficult on and off the field.
“It’s very hard work,” Swanson confessed. “Every time I say it and think about it, it kind of bites me a little bit. Because as an athlete, as a competitor, “surrender” is not in your vocab, that’s not in your personality. That’s not in who you are. So having to kind of learn what surrender is, what that looks like but with your heavenly Father is just a way different ballgame.”
“If I’m going to lead myself, my teammates, my relationship, if I’m going to be a leader in that, I really need to let God lead me,” he added. “He’s the one doing the leading, and I’m just the one on Earth that’s doing the leading, but he’s leading through me and I really feel like that’s kind of the challenge for me as I grow in my spiritual relationship with Him.”
However, Swanson addressed the misconception that if our spiritual lives are healthy, everything else will also be successful.
“We assume, and it’s such a worldly view and such a cultural thing, that if we’re at peace with ourselves, and we’re at peace with our relationship with God that everything in life will just be hunky dory, and it will all work out,” he said. “That’s what we think. Right? We envision… I’m gonna become the best player in the big leagues just because my relationship with God is right.
“I think that that’s such — and I’m reminding myself of this too — wrong way to look at it,” Swanson continued. “Because at the end of the day, our purpose is to serve God and ultimately bring a heaven-like view to where we are on earth and allow Him to do the light shining, allow Him to use our platform for what it’s supposed to be used for.”
Even in the early games of the 2021 season, Swanson said that he worked to rely on God and build up his spiritual life.
“The tough balance to find is that God’s gonna do the leading, it’s my job to follow suit,” he said. “It’s knowing that His path for me is better than my path for me, right? So trusting that I’m going to be where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there, and all those kinds of things.”
In a culture that emphasizes identity, Swanson said that his performance on the field doesn’t define his value.
“Culturally, that’s just how we value things,” he said. “It’s so hard to remind yourself that production on the field has literally no value in terms of how God sees us and what our heavenly value is.”
Swanson also compared this challenge to scripture, when Jesus first calls the 12 disciples, and they follow Him after he helps them catch fish in the Gospels.
“Some of the poorest times on Earth, may be our richest times for spiritual faith and our relationship with Him,” he said. “I think it’s important to keep a bird’s eye view when things aren’t necessarily going well. What are the areas in which God is molding you or sculpting you to be who it is that you’re actually supposed to be? And then you can take that into your work or take that into your field and career.”
“That’s why I think it’s so important to study scripture and study how Jesus lived and how people that followed him lived,” he added. “Because ultimately, I think we’re meant to kind of replicate those same things. We were given the blueprint of success in this world and what that actually looks like, but you can’t follow it if you don’t know it. So I think that’s important.”
Read Also: Braves’ Dansby Swanson: ‘God’s Plan Will Never Fail You’
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
