Author: Jeff Swarr

Play freely. Play fearlessly. These are all attributes of the teams that make the winning plays. These are also the characteristics of people who live for God.

We live this way when we bring our life to God in prayer. In my life, I’ve experienced barriers to praying. God knows what we need and is waiting for us to just bring it to Him in prayer. He tells us this in Matthew 6:8: “Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him!”

The barriers I have experienced are wanting to find the right words or thinking that my needs are too small for God. As we see, He already knows our needs, so stop worrying about having the right words. How can I say He knows our needs? I can say this because He’s answered prayers before.

In the spring of 2025, during our baseball season, there were two times that I got to our locker room before our players and took the time to just walk through our locker room and pray for each player. I did this because it came up in our Monday morning Scouts and Coaches Bible study when one of the coaches talked about it. I actually don’t remember who, and that’s not the point, but I learned it from others. The key piece in this was that nobody else knew that I was doing it—well, not at least another human being—but God knew.

The Monday after Easter of the 2025 season, I needed to have a conversation with one of our seniors about his life and some of the decisions he was making that impacted our team. I knew this conversation would be difficult, and it ended up taking two hours, with a lot of discussion back and forth covering many aspects of life and even faith. During this chat, I shared with our player that I had walked around the locker room and prayed for each player, including him. At that moment, the chat we were having shifted from confrontational to cooperative, and God’s presence was felt; God showed up. Or maybe I should say God was always there—we just recognized His presence. Looking back, as I walked around the locker room praying, God already knew our needs. He already knew that the players and I would need those prayers two weeks later.

Taking the time to pray allowed our players and me to align our lives with God’s plan for us. Take the time to pray. Take the time to share your needs freely. Take the time to pray and share your needs fearlessly.

If we want to live freely and live fearlessly, we are called to pray freely and pray fearlessly.

Lead well. Love better.

In the spring of 2023, we had an experienced baseball team returning from the previous season. In our first game of the season, we faced a quality opposing pitcher and got shut out. In our second game of the season, we lost in an extra-innings walk-off affair. As we entered our third game of the season, doubt crept into my mind about how good we could be. This doubt became great as the third game progressed, entering the bottom of the 7th, losing 1-0. Lo and behold, we scored two runs in the bottom of the 7th, winning in walk-off fashion. We then won 12 of the next 13 games. Our doubt becomes the foundation of faith.

Being raised in a Christian home, we would hear biblical stories of faith from a young age. We hear of Jesus healing the sick, the lame, the blind, and the poor. Many of these healings end with Jesus blessing those that have been healed with this phrase, “…your faith has made you well.”

Jesus healed the bleeding woman, and then in Matthew 9:22, Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.

In Mark 10:52, Jesus says these words to Bartimaeus, “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

After healing the Samaritan leper, we read in Luke 17:19, “Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

All these reminders of people having faith can lead us to feeling that we should not have any doubts or that if we have doubts, there is something wrong with us. Our doubts are reminders that we are human. Our doubts provide the opportunity and the foundation for our faith.

Instead of focusing on our doubts, we are being challenged to lock eyes with Jesus. Our doubts bring our head down, and in order to lock eyes with Jesus, we must lift our head up. Look around and look up. It is then that we are reminded of what is written in Luke 7:22-23, “Then he told John’s disciples, ‘Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.’ And he added, ‘God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.’”

Each of us has a story of faith to tell. We have experiences where God shows up. It is up to us to keep our eyes up and know that God shows up. He shows up right on time to remind us that our doubts are the foundation of the faith that makes us well.

Lead well. Love better.