How This White Sox Star Discovered What a Relationship With Christ Really Means
By Movieguide® Contributor
Being “super religious” doesn’t mean one has a personal relationship with Jesus. Chicago White Sox first baseman Gavin Sheets knows this from personal experience.
“I grew up in a family that my grandparents were super religious. My parents were super religious,” Sheets said in a recent episode of Sports Spectrum’s “I Once Was” YouTube series. “I knew who Jesus was, and all through my life…I did the checklist. I went to church on Sundays. I went to Bible studies in high school, Athletes and Action in college, like I lived the Christian life. And then I got into pro ball. I got drafted in the second round.”
Sheets’ professional baseball journey started in 2020, but COVID-19 put it to an abrupt end. When baseball picked back up again months later, he never got a call to make his big league debut.
READ MORE: WHY JESUS IS ‘EVERYTHING’ TO THIS WHITE SOX FIRST BASEMAN
“I had made baseball this idol in my life. All my plans and all my mind, relationships, everything was into this idol that I created, and I didn’t know what to do, just a mix of emotions and anger and questioning, and it was the first time that I had really searched for God in that moment,” Sheets explained.
One day, Sheets received a text message from his old college baseball coach he hadn’t talked to in a long time.
The text shared a simple story with a profound message:
A visiting pastor attends a breakfast in the middle of a rural farming area of the country. The group had asked an old farmer decked out in bib overalls to say grace for the morning breakfast.
“Lord, I hate buttermilk,” the farmer began. The visiting pastor opened one eye to glance at the farmer and wondered where this was going. The farmer loudly proclaimed, “Lord, I hate lard.'”Now, the pastor was growing concerned. Without missing a beat, the farmer continued, “And Lord, you know how much I don’t care for raw white flour.”
The pastor, once again, opened an eye to glance around the room and saw that he wasn’t the only one to feel uncomfortable. Then the farmer added, “But Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I do love warm, fresh biscuits. So Lord, when things come up that we don’t like, when life gets hard, we don’t understand what you’re saying to us, help us just relax and wait until you’re done mixing. It will all probably be even better than biscuits, amen.”
“Getting this message with no communication with my coach in the last year and just reading through this, I just broke down,” Sheets revealed. “I just thanked God. I just felt his presence for the first time where I needed Him the most, where I called out to Him. It was the first time where I felt myself giving my whole path to God, giving my whole future to God, giving my whole life to God, and just saying, ‘Look, I can’t do this on my own.'”
For more inspiring sports stories, check out Sports Spectrum.
Today, Sheets doesn’t shy away from sharing his faith. His Instagram bio boldly declares, “To God be the Glory.”
“When I’m in need, when I’m giving grace, when I’m giving thanks, He’s there. When I’m at my highs and my lows. And you know, without Him, we don’t go through anything alone. And so, He’s everything to me,” the first baseman previously told Sports Spectrum of his faith.
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