Golfing By Faith

I have always enjoyed golfing. Even though I rarely have the time to get on a golf course during the busy summer months I was able to take some time today and actually go golfing with some of my staff. After driving over an hour we arrived at a little 9 hole course in Sandy Lake, Manitoba. We hit the tee at 8:00 am, the air still cool, but the bright morning sunshine was warm as the grass sparkled from the previous nights rain. I stood and surveyed the fairway. A straight shot a little over 300 yards with the green tucked in next to a bank. Intending to make a good impression I steadied my grip, planted my feet and swung. The ball promptly rose through the sky, hooked left, and disappeared into the row of cabins that lined the lake. I went onto triple bogey the hole and learned a valuable lesson about faith along the way.

The technique of hitting a golf ball can be quite simple. I say can be because you can make it as complicated as you want to, for me, it’s quite simple. If I take my practice strokes, vision my shot, loosen up, keep my head down, hit through the ball, and worry about being consistent instead of how hard I can hit the ball. If I follow these simple steps I can consistently hit a pretty good ball and have a good shot at par. More often than not I find myself trying to do to much, so my foot shifts, my shoulder lifts, my eyes wander, my club slips, and my ball goes flying anywhere but where I had intended it to go. At least if it makes it off the ground and doesn’t go bouncing off to the left through trees and ditches and such…not that anything like that happened.

When I look at the golf course I see a good example of how my life can feel at times. When I am doing the things I should be, spending time to build my relationship with my Lord and Savior, reaching out to others in need, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. My head is down, my knees are bent and I am hitting the ball well. When I take my eyes off of Christ and put them on other things, when I get distracted with things that are apparently more important. My ball swiftly exits the tee box and promptly sails where I did not want it to go. If I do not deliberately build into my life an attitude of seeking and serving Christ than I am lost.

Now putting all of these things into practice does not mean that one can get a hole in one. In fact we can’t. It’s a par five hole and the distance is simply to far away. Fortunately we have a God who can and who wants to help us find Him, grow in Him. If we allow Him to take over and work in our lives, if we humble ourselves before Him and seek His will. It is when we start thinking that life is all about us that we have lost, our ball in the woods. The only way to get on the green is with Christ.

A passage to conclude with. In Romans chapter 7 we read ”

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

This blog post was originally posted on Discover Your Ministry