Psalm 23:4

Barry Zito was once known as one of the most dominating pitchers in Major League baseball, winning the 2002 Cy Young Award. Then in 2006, he signed a huge free agent deal with the San Francisco Giants and became known as the worst signing in recent memory, a choke artist who never lived up to a tenth of his contract, much less the entire $126 million.

Finally, during the 2012 playoffs (and eventually World Series victory), Zito began pitching well, in the face of all expectations. In an interview, he tried to explain why. He said he had been raised by a grandmother who had founded her own religion, called Teachings of the Inner Christ. It was finally in 2012, he said, that he realized how exhausted he was from "relying on his own strengths for so long." He realized that he needed to find " a strength outside" of himself.

He also talked about a "very odd" injury that he had in 2011 - a Lisfranc Ligament tear - that taught him about his lack of control. He illustrates it with a story: "A shepherd will be leading his sheep, and one of the sheep will be walking astray from the pack. The shepherd will take his rod and break the sheep's leg, and the sheep will have to rely on the shepherd to get better. But once the leg is completely healed, that sheep never leaves the side of the shepherd ever again."

Doesn't the name of Zito's grandmother's religion say it all? "Teaching of the Inner Christ"? That "religion" failed him. Zito finally realized he needed to find an outside strength, since the strength from within wasn't doing him any good.

Barry Zito needed the freedom that came from a reliance on the Outer Christ. It took a "very odd" injury for him to have his eyes opened. In the same way, having our leg broken by the shepherd is never something that we would choose for ourselves, but it is often the only way for God to open our eyes to our paralyzing need, and to the truth that there is a Shepherd there to nurse us.

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