| "It was a time in my life when there was great uncertainty about my career. I didn't know where I was going to end up. My family and friends were calling and saying, "Are you worried?" and I was saying, "Yeah, I am worried. I'm comfortable in Kansas City. I have a house here."
I was on my knees when I saw the vivid picture of my life -- it was so detailed, he says. It was a picture of a tandem bicycle. And I was on the front seat of the bike trying to steer where I was going. And it struck me, "That's why I feel all this pressure, because I'm trying to steer." I cried my eyes out that evening. It was a time of brokenness, a time when I said, "God, I cannot do this on my own. I realize I've been trying to do this baseball thing for years."
When I gave my life to Christ, I thought I gave Him everything. But it was apparent that night that I was trying to do baseball all on my own. That night, my prayer was, "Lord, I don't know where I'm going to go. I don't know what spring training has in store for me, but it's time for me to get on the back seat." My commitment was that, come Easter Sunday, I was going to get on my knees and praise Him no matter what. I told God, "I realize that with You on the front seat of the tandem bicycle, You're going to steer me wherever You want to steer me, and I'm going to get on the backseat and pedal my heart out. I'm not going to get sidetracked looking to my left and to my right, I'm going to keep my eyes focused straight ahead on you."
My faith in Christ is kind of like the baseball team; if you're out there by yourself, it's going to be hard to win. If you're the only believer on the team, and you don't really have anybody to hang out with, or you hang out with a bunch of guys who will bring you down, it makes it tough. But for me, I've been blessed with some awesome friends. When I go on the road, I know I'm going to have several guys I can go grab dinner with, and maybe we can open the Bible and talk about what the Lord has put on our heart at that time. That's so much better than going out to a bar or something like that.
People look at me and say, "You know, Mike, you've got it all together, a great career, you're getting paid a good amount of money."
But you know what? That doesn't fill the void in my life. That may bring temporary happiness, but joy is an eternal feeling that I have only because of Christ in my life. So do I want to experience temporary happiness, or do I want to experience eternal joy? I want to experience eternal joy, and the only way I'm going to do that is through my relationship with Jesus Christ and through growing in that relationship every day."
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