How God Sustained This MLB Pitcher Through His Toughest Season Yet
By Movieguide® Contributor
Yankees pitcher Luke Weaver explained how his trust in the Lord helped him overcome the hardest trial in his career and find a new headspace that has allowed him to thrive.
During the 2023 season, Weaver faced a series of difficult trials that caused him to doubt his future in the MLB. After beginning the 2023 season with Cincinnati, Weaver was quickly let go to join Seattle. During his first game, however, he got hit by a line drive straight on the elbow, leaving his future unclear.
Despite an abysmal season that ended after only eight games, Weaver was picked up by the Yankees where he has found new life. In the midst of these trials, the athlete has placed his identity in the Lord, allowing him to stay focused and confident, even during a bad stretch.
“That’s been my prayer to God, like, hey, just give me the strength to come off of a bad outing and be the same guy,” Weaver told the “Sports Spectrum” podcast. “And I think that He showed me a lot.”
However, it’s been a long road for Weaver to get to this point. After months of struggling, he had a breakthrough moment when he realized the solution to his trials lay with Paul.
“In the midst of my struggle, I’m praying hard and I’m in 2 Corinthians 12:10 which talks about Paul and this thorn in his side. And he’s battling against trying to make it about himself,” Weaver said. “And he’s just like, all right, you put this thorn there for a reason because you’re allowing me to know your power. Like, in my weakness, there’s so much power in that.”
“And it just hit me so hard, hit me like a ton of bricks, and I just reread it probably just 50 times, and I just focused on it…then the weakness I’m going through, there’s strength in that and I’m fighting for it,” he added.
This shift changed everything and allowed Weaver to focus on the Lord amidst his successes and his failures. This season has been a return to form for the pitcher, and he has become a valuable member of the Yankees team.
“I broke down a couple of times just through this season, sitting in my hotel bed just thinking about the success that He’s brought me, and the health that He’s brought me and just being like, gosh, this is why we fight,” Weaver said. “This is why we do the things we do. This is why we trust in His plan and why we trust that He is gracious and gonna give us what he feels that we need.”
“I feel like my foundation is built on a rock like it can’t be changed, you know,” Weaver added. “And I think that’s such an amazing thing for me because it’s like, out there on the mound, like in situations that I was never winning or I wasn’t winning much of, I’m [now] winning.”
“And it’s just because I’m confident in who I am and what I’m doing because He instilled all of the things that I’ve asked for in prayer and that I’ve fought for in the last few years,” he continued. “And there’s such peace in that, you know, like nothing bothers me.”
For more inspiring sports stories, check out Sports Spectrum.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Major League Baseball pitcher Luke Weaver joined the Jesus Calling podcast to share how his faith impacts his life.
“There are these moments where it [feels] like I’m being challenged, but God won’t let me get to the breaking point,” Weaver shared. “He’s like, ‘Look, this is what could have happened, but I’m not allowing that to [break you]. Because I need you to be able to go through this process and to learn from it and to build from it.’”
One area in which he continually relies on God is when he faces injuries.
Weaver said, “I’ve had a few injuries. With my elbow, they’ve diagnosed it as a flexor strain, a ligament strain. In baseball, the scary injury is the Tommy John injury, which is a ligament in your elbow that ends up tearing. And it’s about a year recovery. I just barely avoided that. And then I had a shoulder injury, they call it the subscap capsule. That’s deep down in your shoulder, there’s this little ligament that connects all the joints in there together. And I almost ruptured that. I avoided that major surgery, too.”
