Baseball Cards

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 51-52

Daily Thought

Boys collect baseball cards, but when we were boys, we didn’t know any better. We liked the clicking sound baseball cards made when you clothespinned them to the spokes on your bicycle. It didn’t matter what card; Mickey Mantle made the same noise as Yogi Berra. We did not know that a 1914 Babe Ruth would sell for $717,000, or a 1952 Mickey Mantle for $2,880,000, or a 1909 Honus Wagner for $3,120,000. 

“Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
They are worthless, a work of delusion.” ~Jeremiah 51:17-18

Prophets are seldom subtle. There is one God, proclaims Jeremiah, and “it is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jeremiah 51:15). It is the fool who bows before objects of wood and stone, cardboard and clay, who values things more than the Creator of everything. 

We pinned baseball cards to our wheels because we did not know people would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a 2”x3” piece of cardboard. And we were the foolish ones?

Daily Prayer

Most Wonderful God, I worship You. The galaxies, the stars, the moon and sun, planet earth, oceans, animals, and me. You created it all, simply by Your Word. You spoke and it was, and it was good.

There are times, God, when I value things too much, when creation steals more of my attention than the Creator. Lord, may I never lose sight of You, Your glory, Your wisdom. May I always be foolish enough to disdain the wisdom and the wealth of this world, and find my full value in You.

Amen