It Is Worship

Growing up, I thought faith meant refusing to let anything fade away.

Now I think faith means loving fiercely, laboring honestly, honoring what has passed, and opening your hands when the Lord says, “Enough”.

Neither resignation nor rebellion.

Simply refusing to become less than who He has called you to be.

Most of us have probably read Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. I wouldn’t classify it as one of my favorite poems, but every time I revisit it, it speaks to me differently. On the surface, the poem is about death. Written as his father was losing his sight and approaching the end of his life. The repeated refrain:

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It’s a plea not to surrender quietly.

Personally, I don’t think “the dying of the light” has only ever meant the death of life.

It has meant the death of dreams.

The death of certainty.

The death of relationships as you knew them.

The death of identities you built your life around.

The slow realization that you cannot force the people you love to stay. That you cannot will dreams into existence simply because you desire them enough.

A younger version of me believed strength meant preserving every dream, every relationship, every future I imagined. But now, I’ve come to understand that strength is sometimes staying in the fight and sometimes relinquishing the outcome.

Baseball itself has repeatedly put me in front of smaller deaths: seasons ending, opportunities closing, injuries, losses, watching teammates fail despite giving everything.

And every single time, my instinct has been Thomas’s instinct:

Fight.

Don’t quit on people.

Don’t quit on dreams.

Don’t quit on callings.

To stay in the dugout after losses and still lead.

To stay up past midnight writing.

To wake up and pray anyway.

To keep believing there is still another inning left.

To rage against the dying of the light.

But here’s the dangerous part.

Thomas doesn’t distinguish between noble resistance and refusal to accept reality.

The same fire that makes a man faithful can make him unable to grieve.

The same loyalty that keeps us showing up can keep us chained to what God has already asked us to release.

The same determination that helps us pursue dreams can convince us that surrender is cowardice.

For a long time, my life sounded like:

“If I love enough, sacrifice enough, endure enough, maybe I can keep the light from dying.”

But some lights do go out.

Relationships change.

Seasons end.

Dreams fail.

Youth fades.

No amount of effort stops that.

The Biblical tension is that Scripture never asks us to rage against God’s sovereignty.

The Bible doesn’t teach resignation, but neither does it teach rebellion against reality.

When Jacob wrestled God, he fought, but eventually he limped away blessed.

When Christ prayed in Gethsemane, He struggled honestly: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” But He finished with “Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done.”

That isn’t going gentle.

It’s something harder.

It is fighting with everything you have until obedience requires open hands.

To fight but simultaneously surrender.

To hope without demanding.

A year ago if I were writing on this, the refrain might have been:

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Fight for a future.

Fight for baseball.

Fight for the future you imagined.

But now, after some learning, perhaps it would sound more like this:

Rage against apathy.

Rage against becoming cynical.

Rage against becoming a man who mistakes self-protection for strength.

Rage against the temptation to numb yourself.

Rage against fear masquerading as wisdom.

But do not rage against the hand of God when He closes doors you cannot pry open.

Because I don’t think our calling has ever been to preserve every light.

It has been to carry one.

To walk into clubhouses that have forgotten hope.

To love without trying to possess.

To speak with those who think failure defines them.

To write honestly about raw faith.

To keep throwing strikes even after giving up a grand slam.

Thomas says:

Though wise men at their end know dark is right…

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage against the dying of the light.

And sure.

Rage against cynicism, fear, apathy, and the temptation to become less than you were created to be.

But when the One who breathed light into existence asks you to surrender what you cannot save, surrender is not weakness.

It is worship.

The Gospel proclaims something far greater:

The Light has entered the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Fight with all your strength against becoming less than the person God has called you to be.

Love deeply.

Compete fiercely.

Write truthfully.

Hope stubbornly.

But when the inning truly ends, when Yahweh says, “Enough”, take off your glove, hand Him the ball, and trust that the Light Himself has not gone out.

The deepest truth isn’t that we must keep the light alive.

It’s that the Light was never ours to sustain in the first place.

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Additional Reading:

• Ecclesiastes 3:1–2

• Genesis 32:24–31

• Matthew 26:39

• Romans 5:3–5

• Galatians 6:9

• Hebrews 12:1–2

• Psalm 34:18

• John 1:4–5