God and Golf

To say that I'm an amateur golfer would be giving myself far too much credit. However, I do love the game of golf (in this case I use the word "love" lightly, you that golf understand what I mean). I love everything about the game of golf, the complexity and beauty of a great course, the feel of the fairway under my feet, hitting the perfect shot, sinking a good putt, and just the peacefulness that I can experience when I'm playing. Sometimes, I take golf too seriously. I play in a weekly golf league, it's something I really enjoy, but I definitely take it a little too seriously. That realization came crashing down on top of me this evening. I didn't go to my small group tonight because I've been feeling "under the weather" since Sunday evening. I wanted to be able to go to bed early, so I came home after work. Around 8:15 I headed out to the garage because I had decided I needed to clean my golf clubs for tomorrow's match. I turned on some music, grabbed a lawn chair, and sat down and started cleaning. After about 5 clubs I started feeling a guilty. I realized that I put a lot of time, effort, and care into my golf game... going as far as spending my free time scrubbing clubs. Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with taking care of your material possessions, please don't misinterpret where I'm going with this...

I started thinking about my spiritual life. Every aspect of my daily prayer life, the time I spend (or don't spend) in the Word, and the time I spend in good conversation with those around me about Christ. God did one of those back of the head slaps and said "HEY YOU, PAY ATTENTION!". Sidenote: I'm starting to get those head slaps more often, good thing? yes, headache? yes... Anyway, what I realized is that I don't give my spiritual life the same time, effort and care that I do my golf game, or my Jeep, or my job for that matter. I allow everything to take priority in my life other than my time with Christ. Now, I have always known that I am a wretched sinner saved by the grace of God. But that's no excuse to not give Him the love and attention He gives me, and deserves. I turned off my music, and I kept thinking about this. I started asking myself why do I put so much effort into something that doesn't always enhance my growth with Christ. I mean, there are times where I'm sure God is very disappointed in my attitude, language, and conversation while I'm on the golf course. Yet, there I was allowing golf to take away from God. I'm not saying I shouldn't have been cleaning clubs, but I am saying my mindset when I sat down to do that should have been different. I should have seen it as some time to be in conversation with God, time to listen to a sermon or some worship music and sit and ponder the glories of God. Instead I was listening to country music, thinking about work, how I need to clean the Jeep, my weekend plans, and girls (my mind runs at 100 miles per minute). And of course, it doesn't stop there...

While all this was going on, I got an email from a brother of mine. He had asked me to read over a blog post that he had written (click here to read Chris' post) I wasn't sure why he chose me to read it, or if he even knew why. Now I understand. His post was being used by God to teach me this lesson. It's about our motives behind what we do, that doing the right things for the wrong motives, doesn't necessarily please Christ.  I was so thankful for the opportunity to read this in the moment of what I was learning. I realized that I need to be intentional about doing things that are pleasing to God. That could very well be cleaning clubs, if I'm doing that as a way to be in reverence of Christ. If I'm doing that to serve my own selfish desires, then that's not very pleasing to God. I need to be more intentional about my walk with Christ. I need to put some focus into what matters the most, and stop finding excuses to do other things. I need to stop running. When I put focus in God, He usually teaches me some hard lessons. Whether those are about myself, my relationships, or my walk in general, they can be things I don't want to learn because they stretch me. I need the stretching, I need to be broken, and I need to start focusing on the opportunities I have to be broken and stretched. I need to stop being scared about learning and growing. I need to put more focus on God, than I do on golf. I need to be disciplined in discipleship.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7

Grace and Peace