When the Heart Gets in the Way

The 2015 World Series came to an exciting end in extra innings on Sunday night. After trailing for the entire game, the Kanas City Royals scored two runs in the top of the ninth to tie up the score and send the game into what would become three extra innings. Both teams were held scoreless in innings 10 & 11, but the Royals got a few big hits in the 12^th and rode the momentum to score five runs in the inning. The Mets failed to score another run and the Royals became the champions of the baseball world.

The final inning was an exciting one, but the real story of the game occurred at the top of the ninth. Mets pitcher Matt Harvey was on fire through eight innings: having allowed only four hits & no runs with nine strikeouts. As the top of the eighth inning came to a close, the crowd was chanting, “Har-vey, Har-vey!” as their beloved pitcher stepped off of the mound with a 2-0 lead over the Royals.

The Royals failed to score in the bottom of the eighth, leaving Mets manager Terry Collins with a tough decision: send out your guy who has been on fire for eight innings or send in your closer with a fresh arm? Collins initially decided to have his man Harvey watch the fruit of his labor from the dugout, but he was convinced to do otherwise. Collins had this to say in an interview after the game: “He [Harvey] just came over and said, ‘I want this game. I want it bad. You’ve got to leave me in.’ So, obviously, I let my heart get in the way of my gut. I love my players. And I trust them. And so I said, ‘Go get ’em out.'”

Harvey took the mound and allowed two runs: the rest is history. We can all learn an important Biblical lesson here: the heart isn’t always right. As the prophet Jeremiah has written, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Our hearts (that is, our feelings) can deceive us in more ways than we might realize. One person might feel that there is no GOD. Another might feel that GOD would never punish anyone. Another might feel that GOD wouldn’t prohibit HIS people from doing anything that brought them pleasure. Another might feel like they were a king in a past life. The problem is obvious: feelings do not determine reality. Who then should we trust?