The Sauntering Pilgrim

“Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Phil. 1:27a).

Cory Edwards, coach of the Paseo Verde, Nevada, Little League team, could see it coming. The team’s members were fighting off tears, beginning to sulk, and pointing fingers as they realized they were only a few more balls and strikes from losing the 2026 Little League World Series final. So he called his players together and told them there was only one way to finish.

“Hey, listen,” he said, “no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up. You have to not get on each other. You have to have good body language. Those things are important. You have to stay mentally tough.” And then he said, “Whether it’s emotionally or spiritually, whatever you need to do, that’s not a moment to lay down and crumble. That’s a moment to be your absolute best.”

Soon his players were shouting support to their teammates, and smiles began to appear in the dugout. “It wasn’t supposed to be a comeback speech,” Edwards said later. “It was more a moment of a life lesson. I wanted them to understand how you respond to challenges shows a lot about your character” (“A Little League coach’s advice to his team went viral,” in The Athletic, an organ of The New York Times, 2 September 2026).

His little seventeen-second life lesson is all over the Internet now because it struck home with so many people, a lesson for how to live when you’ve tried your best and your hopes are falling apart. It struck home with me as I watch the nation in which we live, the nation that has long enshrined—not always exhibited but at least held dear—democratic values and human decency—as I watch us teeter on the brink of losing ourselves to forces of avarice, arrogance, and depraved autocracy, much of it in service of an idolatrous perversion of Christian faith.

At times I find myself, like that Little League team, fighting off tears and wanting to sulk. And God knows there seems to be no end of finger pointing. How do we live as Christians in times like these? Do we, like the prophet Habakkuk, simply stand at our watch post and see what God will say to us (Hab. 2:1)? How do we not lay down and crumble? How do we be our absolute best?

We’re not the first to ask that question. A small Christian congregation in Macedonia asked it nearly 2,000 years ago. The church in Philippi was the first church St. Paul established on European soil, and he seems to have had a close and happy relationship with them—a kind of coaching relationship. Pressures on the Philippians were severe, and Paul wrote to help them find strength in facing their trials and joy even under threat of death.

Paul urged them to hold fast their faith in difficult times. He acknowledged life was hard, and he urged the Philippians to rise above their circumstances through faith. In all they were facing, Paul wrote, “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Paul’s advice to the Philippians is also his challenge to us. Live in a way that makes us a credit to the message of reconciliation that has been entrusted to us (2 Cor. 5:19). As Christians, we are representatives of Christ, given responsibility in this world to demonstrate with our manner of living the present reality of that reconciliation.

Many come close to doing that: they are almost Christian. They’re honest; they respect the truth and are kind and respectful of others. They practice an outward form of religion: they attend public worship, pray and practice private devotions, and lead moral and ethical lives. They try to do good whenever possible and please God in all they do. But their Christianity is an outward garment and not an inner transformation. Their lives are almost worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Here is some of what I believe it means to live a life truly worthy of that gospel. First, I believe it’s not necessary to have a deep understanding of the gospel, only to have a strong confidence in it, strong enough to build a life on it. Even if you’re full of doubt and uncertainty, live as an expression of your faith until you have that faith, and then you will live in faith because you have it.

I believe when you choose a vision for your life, you also choose the manner of living required to realize that vision. Living a life worthy of the gospel means embodying its reality in each ordinary present moment—not merely in what you choose to do but in who you are through and through. It means living a life consciously and intentionally that by grace is reconciled with God and is given to the ministry of reconciliation with others—all others, without exception.

I believe a life worthy of the gospel is not aimed at attaining something we don’t yet have (a future quality of life, or a place in heaven). It is to dwell in a quality of life that is already ours here and now, to be shared with others. No matter how much faith we have when we begin—whether little faith, great faith, or perfect faith—when we commit ourselves to live that life, we are already at our destination.

And I believe that because the gospel of reconciliation is always personal and never private, a life worthy of the gospel is not a protected, unblemished, and unwounded life; rather, it is a life risked in living intentionally and visibly for others to see, a life to which others must respond. As James admonishes us in his letter, faith in theory and not in practice is no faith at all. So “be doers of the word,” he wrote, “and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (Jas. 1:22). Or as Wendell Berry put it so simply: live what you believe. Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, practice mercy and kindness to others, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

Living a life worthy of the gospel does not require attaining some high, unrealized ideal that God holds before us like a carrot on a stick. We don’t need a makeover; what we need is to wake up and see clearly who we really are—and whose we are—and to grapple with life with authenticity and integrity whether we win or lose the contest. As Coach Edwards told his team, “Whether it’s emotionally or spiritually, whatever you need to do [in the difficult times you must face], that’s not a moment to lay down and crumble. That’s a moment to be your absolute best.” That’s a moment, Paul would tell us, to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ.