Steven Wright was on top of the world in the summer of 2016. The knuckleballer from California had been picked up in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft and was now standing on the pitcher’s mound for the Boston Red Sox as he pitched his first complete MLB game for a decisive 5-1 victory over the Yankees. He was also selected for the All-Star game that summer. And then prior injuries came back to eventually derail his 2017 season, and that’s when things started crashing down.
 
Steven admits, “I got away from God. I stopped praying. I stopped reading my Bible. I was frustrated with God. I was so mad at God.” 
 
His insight is incredibly self-reflective and hints to a greater point in his story where he states, “God is as big, as close as you are to him, in your life.”

Steven’s story is inspiring in all the right ways. It shows that when we move away from God the small cracks in our lives begin to grow wider and threaten to swallow us whole. It also shows that while we can incorrectly and naively blame God for the problems in our lives, we are often “drinking the wrong Kool-Aid.” God loves us. There is no caveat or footnote to those three words.
 
We may not all be former MLB All-Stars, but Steven’s story isn’t really that much different from many stories of men around us. When things are great, we get lazy with our faith and drift away. It’s not until we’re in the dark valley that we realize we need help and finally give up trying to control everything around us. It’s then that we find God right where we left him all along.