Only One Counts

Babe Ruth is an infamous baseball player who impacted baseball. Babe Pinelli is an infamous umpire who impacted Ruth. During one game, Pinelli called Ruth out on strikes. As the crowd booed and shouted angry comments, Ruth also turned to Pinelli to give his opinion. Ruth said, “There are 40,000 people here who know that last pitch was a ball.” Pinelli responded, “Maybe so, Babe, but mine is the only opinion that counts.”

We live in a world of opinions. We live in a world where social media has millions of opinions being constantly updated. We play in environments where fans, parents, former athletes and sports reporters have opinions. We grow up hearing the opinions of our peers, loved ones, family members and significant others. It can feel as if we are in the baseball stadium where Ruth was, hearing all 40,000 different opinions simultaneously. Opinions from this world can be overwhelming.

God knows that the noise of everyone’s opinions can lead to confusion, anxiety and stress. He knows we will be tempted to listen to each of them, but, just as Pinelli said, only one opinion counts – God’s.

When we reach the end of life, we will meet our Creator face to face. He will take each of us on a journey through our lives, and in the end, only His opinion and judgment will matter. Did we listen to His perfect voice and do what He said, or did we listen and follow the opinionated voices of everyone else?

Throughout life, we will never hear the end of people’s opinions about what we should do, say, wear, go or choose. However, knowing God’s opinion is the only one that matters and helps us drown out the others to focus solely on Him.