Par for the Course !

I know a pastor who enjoys the occasional game of golf, so much so that he even plays with church members. Only one problem. He had an anger issue with golf failure. To the extent that one day in a temper tantrum he actually wrapped an iron around a tree. What happened next was pretty embarrassing. The elders of the church took his golf clubs away and said he could have them back when he could display a more Christlike attitude when losing. Pretty schadenfreude-ish for me—as in, glad it was him and not me!

The reality is that I have had, as I’m sure is true of most believers, my share of less than stellar reactions to problems and disappointments. Anger, anxiety, withdrawing, moodiness, to name a few. It’s encouraging to me that the Bible is replete with the failures and foibles of heroes and people lauded for their service to God. It seems counterintuitive that someone who serves God can at the same time be so imperfect. And yet, in His mercy, God allows us a birds’ eye view into their blemished lives to encourage us. Our personal failings might seem significant and overwhelming to us—but they are part of the human condition and to God they are nothing. If we turn them over to Him …

Elisha overcame depression (1 Kings 19:9-18), Jonah a really bad attitude (Jonah 2), Moses a confused sense of worth (Exodus 4:10-16), Paul leaning on his own accomplishments (Philippians 3:8-21), David’s fall into heinous sins (2 Samuel 12:10, 20), Miriam’s self-aggrandizement (Numbers 12:10–16). God helped them overcome and He is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). What He did for them He will graciously do for us.

Not that it will be easy. God doesn’t just wave a magic wand and say, ”Ta-dah! You are changed!” No, we have to struggle like the butterfly to get out of our confining chrysalis in order to morph into our better self. And our repentance and desire to change does not nullify the consequences of sin. Remember Jonah’s yucky belly-of-the-fish adventure, David’s son dying, Miriam’s leprosy—but interwoven into each sad story turned victorious is the consistent reaching out of God to His people. And because His Word assures us that He takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner (Ezekiel 33:11), we can rest assured that every time someone did what they shouldn’t, even when not explicitly recorded in scripture, God did in fact give them ample time and opportunity to repent.

Take Cain. When you’ve read the story of how he killed his brother in Genesis 4, have you ever asked yourself why God talked to him as He did? God certainly didn’t need to know from Cain’s lips what had happened. He is God. He is omniscient (Psalm 147:5; John 21:17; Hebrews 4:12-13; 1 John 3:20). He knows everything, past, present, and future. But seeing how God reaches out to others in other narratives in the Good Book, we can infer that His question was not without purpose. His desire was to draw Cain out, to bring him to a place of repentance and restoration in his relationship with God. But Cain would have none of it. Despite God’s tender wooing, he hardened his heart. God offered him room for repentance and Cain turned Him down flat.

That pastor with the golf clubs? Instead of having a pouty hissy fit at the reprimand by his elders, he chose to humble himself and seek God for help with his anger. Not long after that those elders returned his beloved clubs to him. There were no more tree-wrapping episodes.

The choice is ours.

The truth is that life is never static. In this world we will never reach a permanent place of happily ever after. Problems—attitudes we need to change—will always be par for the course Until we get to Heaven, we will face a continuous presentation of difficulties of one kind or another. We can either harden our hearts like Cain— or, like that pastor who humbled himself, we can lay all our desires and attitudes on the altar in search of a closer walk with Him.

I choose Jesus over golf clubs any day.

“Who (God) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord"(2 Corinthians 3:18).

"I beseech you therefore, brethren by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1).