Put on your PF Flyers

You can learn a lot of facts in life from fiction.

The Sandlot is my all-time favorite movie, and there are so many lessons you can take from this brilliant story. One of those is the reality that often the answer to our problems is so simple compared to the methods we try in attempts to solve them.

Smalls and his friends find themselves in a pickle when a Babe Ruth autographed baseball soars over the fence into the backyard where "The Beast" lives and reigns. As legend has it, anything that goes over that fence—including young children—never returns. The boys use all kinds of silly means, including Lego contraptions and human bungee devices, to try to get the ball back, but The Beast interferes with every single one.

Then the dream happens.

Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, who proved to be Smalls' most loyal friend, has a dream in which the Great Bambino himself appears and tells Benny there's really only one things he needs to do to retrieve the ball.

Just hope over there and get it.

Understandably so, the young man is not a huge fan of this idea: "You're saying I should hop over that fence and pickle the beast?!"

One thing the Babe tells Benny about people getting chances to do great things really stuck with me: "Most people never take the chance—either 'cause they're too scared, or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes."

Every day we're faced with so many decisions and so many opportunities to be bold and take chances or to sit comfortably and let parts of life pass us by more quickly than we could ever imagine. We complicate situations by over-thinking them and taking roundabout ways that we've convinced ourselves will benefit us more in the grand scheme of things.

Lace 'em up

And we forget to live in the now.

When Benny laced up his new PF Flyers, hopped the fence, grabbed the ball, and then took off running for dear life, he was truly showing what it meant to live in the moment. He had taken to heart what Babe Ruth said: "This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by."

Near the end of the movie, we learn that The Beast is actually a really nice and playful dog and that the boys had let misconceptions hinder them from recognizing reality—something we all do far more often than we'd likely prefer. Rather than attempting so many safe methods to make things happens, all we really need to do is hop the fence and trust whatever path the Lord wants us to go. It's that simple.

There are often huge beasts in our lives, and we tend to make them seem larger than they actually are. But it's best to put all fear to the side and, instead, lace up our PF Flyers and face them with a bold trust that no one can logically explain.

This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by.