Baseball’s Logan Gilbert Uses Faith to Face Fear

in addition to a baseball mound Logan Gilbert knows where he stands having a really good sense of your identity and where that comes from is the most important thing for me and that's helped me in the journey the Seattle Mariners All-Star right-hander is baseball's most efficient pitcher minimizing opponents at bats per inning even efficient enough to know himself and know the source of his deep convictions tie your profession as a player with who you are as a person and how the two emerge together on that every fifth day of your rotation out there yeah it can be so competitive and Fierce and in the Bible you see Old Testament people going to war like Joshua do not fear be strong and courageous that's stuff really resonates with me when I'm out there this Supernatural peace that will find you in really tough situations and circumstances and I'll pray before the games if and then when I get out there I'm completely in the moment completely competitive the two come together every single time just Eternal connection with God at what point do you know you have it uh usually right before I start my Bullpen I'll I'll pray out there for a minute or two I do all my warm-ups running around and then that's when I take a second to just like to be still for a couple moments that's I think when it clicks for me and then of course I'll be nervous right before the game and then when I go out there it's where I really feel most comfortable so Logan you'll know you have it here before you actually throw a pitch oh yeah definitely wow that's pretty cool yeah it's it's deep too like at a at a soul level you don't necessarily know that things are going to go perfect but you know that regardless of how things go that you'll be okay because you have something so much greater you have eternal significance and security from God that it's not proving yourself in some way that primary pitch that you get your go-to what is the grip can you show me and your release on it uh the foring fast ball I have the Horseshoe going out to the left side there with my fingers together this is the one that I get the farthest extension on you're trying to throw it as fast as you can and that's what we go to all the time use it early in counts finish counts try to get strikeouts does it make it a pitch by pitch account for you every game it's it's almost like draining at times because every single pitch you go through the same commitment mental process and it happens every 15 seconds or whatever but you throw a pitch execute learn from it and then completely forget about it in a way and go on to the next one and you do that over and over completely committed to your process the slider sometimes I throw that more than the fast ball actually so I have kind of a weird grip here it's a spike grip I put the thumb up on the side of the ball like that showed it to other guys not as conventional but goes straight down I throw it as hard as I can and um that's what I really like to go to with two strikes and when you show the other guys the give you this glaze look like what at first like there there's no way that's really how you throw it but for some reason it works for me that's what I landed on and I'm just I'm going to keep doing it how do you walk that balance of trying to perfect as you go along in the game every pitch you are yielding and surrendering to things that you cannot control right it's tough um trying to be perfect was help me get here so I had to learn how to walk that line and how to do it in a healthy sustainable way I kind of gave up trying to be perfect controlling results I don't really have as much control as I think I'm so grateful that I can surrender that to somebody that is in control and there's so much hope in that Allstar Logan what's the common denominator for excellence really knowing yourself and then after that just being yourself genuinely and not trying to be something more than yourself on the mound as a pitcher as a person that's for all of us oh everybody yeah how freeing is that for you oh yeah I I mean you hit it on the head right there there the freedom that comes with it cuz I've been out there pitching games and it could go great but almost felt like tight like oh no at any second something could go wrong but if you're being yourself you have that freedom that comes with it that freedom is ultimately what you were called to live in now you're enjoying the moment you're enjoying what you were made to do unconditional love of a father or Creator yeah how does that look to you there's just so much anxiety like everybody even I at times face it when you have that unconditional love you know the source that gives that to you there's just so much peace in that nothing I could do could change that you don't have this mask on you're not trying to perform in a certain way to hold up a trophy and say look at me I'm already known by God who loves me and that can't be taken away have you found by taking that mask off about yourself that your sight lined to him becomes that much clearer too that's a good way to put it for sure I I think I've felt that at times I don't think I've understood it as well as you just said it honestly but once you say that it's like he wants to know the real you right just like we want to know him as you experience him God knows us better than we know ourselves so it's like why would we pretend to be anything else how has your Christ following and this specific profession for you allowed you to be able to walk through all of these uncertainties for me and I get caught up in the same tra as everybody else there's always something bigger and better and then you're comparing yourselves to people around you and they have a little bit more I mean there's important stuff here right but it's like what is one more whatever it is going to relate to eternally being loved by God who made you who already says you're you're enough so Logan in your game Scouts were looking searching for you what do you think people are most searching for now people every I feel like everyone whether they know it or not is searching for that fulfillment and looking for it in different ways unfortunately not finding it anywhere else and i' I've experienced that myself in this game or a ton of other things but the love of Jesus being known by him knowing him when you know the hole in your heart that's meant for Jesus and ultimately you feel that when you know him that's the Fulfillment that we're made for