The Gospel According to Shark Tank and Moneyball

The other evening I saw part of the TV show “Shark Tank” for the first time.  Apparently, it’s a chance for inventors to pitch their products to potential investors.  As I watched, a man who wanted to sell recyclable sneakers made a pitch to investors to put $50,000 into his concept.  The first four potential investors turned him down for one simple reason: “You aren’t asking for enough money.”  As they explained to him, the $50,000 would only be enough to process a first order, leaving him with no capital for inventory and production costs to go any further.  Ironically, they refused to give him any money because he should have asked for more money.  I’m no expert on recyclable footwear and business strategies, but I was struck by the way his limited vision for his product and his company hurt him.  He failed to comprehend the magnitude of the opportunity in front of him.  By trying to be prudent and start small, he lost the opportunity entirely.

Then a couple days later, we watched the movie “Moneyball,” a baseball movie starring Brad Pitt.  In one scene, the stars watch a video clip of a baseball player whose goal when he’s at the plate is simply to get to first base.  He never tries to turn his hits into a double.  Then, on a rare occasion, he hits a long ball and decides to round the corner to get to second base.  But when he does, he trips and falls.  Frantically, he literally crawled across the dirt to get back to first base.  The opposing players double over in laughter: not because of how foolish he looked trying to get back on base, but because he had hit a home run and didn’t even know it.  Sheepishly, the batter picked himself up off the dirt and rounded the bases, to the applause and laughter of everyone in the stadium.  He had a home run, but could only think about getting to first base.

I wonder: how often is this is case for us when we come before God?  Do we think too small, by imposing limitations upon what we think God is willing to do for us?  Do we set our sights too low by being willing to settle for $50,000 or first base, when God’s plans for us are so much more?  In the process of not wanting to impose on our Lord, or going beyond what we think is reasonable, we discount our expectations.  When we do, we risk losing out on the riches of God’s grace because we haven’t asked for enough.

Let me be clear.  When I am speaking about asking from God, I’m not referring to the wealth and health and fame that purveyors of the “prosperity gospel” offer.  Focusing upon such worldly, self-centered interests blinds us to the true riches that God offers, and in fact has already supplied us through the powerful work of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we do not ask for enough because we don’t want to impose upon God.  But is that even possible?  Remember, this is the Lord of all creation, with limitless, over-abounding glory.  The only way we could impose upon him is if granting our request would somehow diminish his own glory.  And that is impossible for God to do, for two reasons.  First, think of infinity as the mathematical metaphor for the glory of God.  Infinity minus fifty thousand is still infinity.  Infinity minus fifty bazillion is still infinity.  No matter how much God grants to us, it is no imposition upon him, because he continues to have inexhaustible glory, power, wisdom, and honor.

Perhaps we limit our requests to God for what we think is reasonable.  But do you really want God to treat you reasonably?  By reasonable standards, the only treatment any of us would deserve from God would be condemnation and annihilation because of the sinfulness and brokenness that is inherent to our human condition.  Reasonably, we cannot even ask God to grant us our next breath, our next heartbeat, our next thought.  The indescribable glory for us is that God does not treat us with reason; he treats us with grace.  He delights to overwhelm us beyond our wildest dreams.  Why?  The only explanation is simply that he wants to.  It has nothing to do with deserving it, earning it, or reasonably expecting it.  God takes pleasure in being lovingly unreasonable with us.  When we enter the adventure of faith, we abandon standard concepts of what is logical and reasonable.  We cast ourselves into the amazing, overwhelming plan of God that outstrips even our wildest dreams, that goes far beyond what we could ever imagine would be possible.

The greatest irony of all is that God has already given us more than enough.  The baseball player already had a home run, but couldn’t even see it.  We are like him when we fail to recognize the more-than-enough that God has already given us.  Christ has already hit one out of the park for us, and has already bestowed upon us an indescribable bounty of joy, peace, hope, and love.  The Christian journey is not one of receiving more and more blessing from God.  It is the journey of running the bases to discover more and more of the blessing that Christ delivered to us through his redeeming death and victorious resurrection.  The consummation of the ages is merely the time when humanity, and all creation, finally catches up with the superabundance of the cross.

So go ahead: ask for the audacious from the Lord.  You can do it because he has already provided it for you.