I can think of no other sport that emulates Christianity as does the game of golf. It seems the harder you try to improve your game the more difficult it is to achieve the desired outcome. Anyone who has played the game for any length of time will confirm the necessity of relaxation. When you try to force a shot with all your strength the ball seems to have a mind of it’s own. When you relax and let the club do the work it seems so easy and you become self assured. Sometimes when you are tired and not doing well it seems that you cannot summon any ability whatsoever. It’s difficult to achieve consistency and when the ball finds a sand trap, water or lands out of bounds temptation may set in to behave badly in a total fleshly moment. It would seem that the man who invented the game understood the struggles of the Christian life quite well.

          Between the sport and the desire to live a spiritual life I have discovered how desparetly I want to be in control. The secret in each case is submissiveness not control. When you think about it, there is very little we can control. We are at the mercy of our environment. For example the weather will be what it will be no matter how hard I try to change it. We age and there is nothing we can do about it. The need to accept the external pressures of life and trust in divine intervention is crucial for all of us.

          With that said let me make it clear that life isn’t a journry of mindless acceptance. Whether you are playing golf or trying to improve your walk there is an effort required. We must apply ourselves to certain disciplines that will develop  the characteristics  needed to perform at a higher level. A devotional comittment is required in any area of life that will serve to enhance the results we would like to achieve. In golf it may be require regular trips to the driving range or lesson from a pro. It takes constant practice. As far as spiritual development goes, devotional time, time in the Word, time for rest (Sabbath type rest), prayer and a close one on one relationship with an other believer or mentor can be of great value.

          Great golfers struggle less. They don’t swing the club as many times. They don’t miss the mark quite as much as the rest of us. Great disciples can find that same consistency in addressing the issues of life that we all struggle with. In both cases we must apply our efforts to devotion and discipline . We must stop trying so hard and surrender to a new set of abilities that aren’t so natural to us.

          Have you ever been to one of those shows where the animals are so well trained that they seem smarter than the humans. We recently saw such a display at the Sight and Sound Theatre in Lancaster. Animals run down the aisle, across the stage and fly through the air all on cue. A few years ago I saw Siegfried and Roy and was amazed how the wild animals performed during the show.

I fear that the word “sin” has all but lost it’s meaning in America today. The concept of sin seems foreign in a “do what feels good society”, but as diminished and disguised as it may be, rest assured it is alive and well. Sometimes I hear the refrain that things, historically speaking, have been this bad before but I have a hard time believing that the fast paced excesses we’ve experienced at the beginning of the 21st century are anything but unprecedented.

“Greed” has driven Wall Street and corporate America to the brink of economic chaos. Can any one person truly be worth a $40 million dollar bonus? Does any one person really deserve $40 million dollars for running a corporation into the ground while bankrupting the workers pension funds. This tale has become all to common today. The average guy like myself wonders how any board of directors could approve such behavior. Well it is ashamedly simple. Strong CEO’s often control who gets appointed to the board. These positions often carry large six-figure salaries for working only a handful of days a year accompanied by many corporate  perks such as new cars, access to company jets, expense accounts, etc., etc. You get the picture. From the stockholders perspective it’s like having a “family of foxes” watching the hen house.

It’s time for a priority change in the good old USA. We need to stop naming TV shows after the seven deadly sins (ex: Greed), stop paying sports figures millions to play a game (maybe we could afford to go back to the stadium), raise the salary of our police officers, fireman and teachers and who knows maybe each corporation could find someone talented enough to do the CEO job for a meager salary of oh say a million dollars or so.

1 Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and have pireced themselves with many griefs.” Bernard Maadoff is probably the 21st century poster child for this prophetic verse. I’m unsure if he wandered away from the faith but it is apparent that he lived fast and furious. It all came crashing down, probably all too soon and now what is there to show for it (besides a 150 year prison sentence). Perhaps he will find faith through his upcoming ordeal. At least we can hope and pray that God in His mercy will show Bernie the redeeming value of the Cross. While considering the excessive greed exhibited by Wall Street fat cats it might serve all of us well to take stock of our own lives and guard against allowing greedy appetites to determine the direction of our own integrity. We must recognize that the allure of sin can be a powerful trap if we aren’t careful to avoid its call. It isn’t the about how large or small our appetite for sin is. Sin is still sin.

We Christians are great at latching on to the latest cliches such as “It’s not about you”. What often starts out as a well meaning point gets strechted out of shape until it begins to send the wrong message or become the latest crutch. Hopefully we do realize that God has a plan and each of us are only a small part of the big picture. I guess we are all guilty sometimes of wanting God to re-arrange the universe to fit our picture of what life should be like and in that instance the saying makes a valid point. However when taken to extreme we can be left with such an insignificant view of ourselves that we end up expecting nothing from God. I’ve been wanting to begin a message by asking people if God is living up to their expectations? Some might easily say “yes” as they have no expectations to begin with. Others might say “no” because God isn’t coming through the way they wish and in that case they need to be reminded that it isn’t all about them. A better query might be to ask if we are living up to God’s expectations? (This a point for another writing because there are many misconceptions about what this means). But wait a minute! Isn’t it ever about me? Do I ever matter? We know that God has a plan for our lives, so in some sense it must be about me. Aren’t we fearfully and wonderfully made in His image in order that we may fellowship with our Father? Don’t we belong to to a royal priesthood? Aren’t we part of the body of Christ, the pure spotless bride. Somewhere in all of this I believe we need to develop a little bit of Christian self-esteem in light of “whose” we are. It’s all right to boast in the things that God has done for us. I want to have great expectations of a victorious life in Christ. I must believe that when life’s road twists and turns in directions that were not my choosing God has a blessing in store because I trust His judgment more than I prize my own. I’m thankful that it was enough about me that He included me in His atonement on the cross. In that sense I fail to see how it could be any more about me.