If You Build It, He Will Come

“If you build it, he will come.”  I’m guessing that most of us, without using Google, remember which movie that quote came from.  If you guessed Field of Dreams you are correct, and like most people it is one of my favorite movies.  My wife and I stumbled across it this weekend and decided to sit down and watch it again.As I was watching the movie I couldn’t get over the parallels between what Ray (played by Kevin Costner) was going through and what we as Christians go through.  I found it humorous when Ray was at his local Co-op he asked if anyone had heard voices while they were out farming.  The looks the other customers gave him where priceless, and I’m sure a lot of us can relate to how Ray was feeling.  Have you ever told someone that you felt like God was leading you to do something and people look at you like your crazy (especially non-believers)?  Sometimes (or a lot of times) God gives us a word or a direction and the outside world thinks it’s stupid to follow some “imaginary” voice/feeling.Even without the support of his friends/colleagues/community Ray went ahead and put his faith in the vision he received to build a baseball diamond right over his crops.  After Ray completed the baseball field he anxiously waited for the next step, or to reap his rewards for following through.  But he waited, and waited, and waited… But when the time was right he was given the next piece of the puzzle.  Does this not sound like God to a T?!  Sometimes God will give you a vision and it will take affect right away, but from my experiences he gives me a vision/word and only some time later do I see it come to fruition.  But that vision/word is always completed at just the perfect time.Ray finally see’s the benefit of his faithfulness when players from baseball past show up to play ball on the field, but of course the voice doesn’t stop there.  No, he sends him on a wild goose chase tracking down other people to get them involved on the fun too.  Again, God does the exact same thing!  We are such relational creatures and for good reason!  God doesn’t want to give us a gift or an adventure without including our friends (or soon to be friends) in on it as well.But my favorite part of the whole movie is the very end.  This whole time Ray thought he built the baseball field for his boyhood baseball hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson.  However, when Ray asks to follow Joe into the corn field (in the movie the players magically disappear as they enter the corn field and into another world unknown) Joe tells Ray he better stay.  Ray became upset and felt entitled to know what was on the other side, but Shoeless Joe Jackson told him again, “you better stay Ray.”  He eventually gave in and as Joe disappeared into the corn Ray finally found out why he needed to stay.As Ray turned and looked at the last player left on the field it was his Dad.  Ray’s dad passed away when he was very young so you can imagine the shock he must have felt to see him standing there.  And do you know what Ray asked his dad?  “Hey Dad, do you want to have a catch?”  This simple act of playing catch is so simple yet so powerful and meaningful.  This is exactly how God is too…All God wants to do with us is “have a catch.”  To spend uninterrupted time with us doing something we both love.  In the end, Ray never regretted any of the “crazy” things he did.  I would imagine he would have done it 10 times over if it meant he had the opportunity to have a catch with his dad again.Have you taken the time to “have a catch” with God today?