The Treasure of Encouragement

On in Two…and Then Three-Putt Well, for a par-five, this is good golf. I mean, that you have parred the hole, regardless of the three putts. It can also be the bane of a golfer’s existence, on a par-four hole, the rotten aftertaste of a approach shots played splendidly, then wrecked by three ridiculous putts that show nothing but a weekender’s unpracticed touch. Miserable feeling. For those of us who play the game and pretend just to have fun and not get upset, a three-putt green just stinks. Golf can so frustrate a golfer that he or she may seethe inside when recounting how what could have been didn’t happen. The moment arises for a skilled shot, but the execution sinks in infamy and disgrace. It’s the fallibility of man pitted against the mute, unfeeling face of a gloriously shaped landscape that remains inscrutable regarding our suffering. Such is the game. I contend as well that it parallels our lives as Christians in ways too close for comfort. Golf humor is classic primarily because it contains the deepest empathy. I’ll never forget the time when playing with my dad and brother at a well-known course in Colorado. This particular hole was a par four with a water hazard along the left of the fairway, bordered by out-of-bounds. You had to lay up or hit a great shot over a central pond onto the fairway leaving a wedge to the green. We had laid up and were waiting for a golfer in front of us to hit his approach shot. He did hit a great wedge and ended up about twelve feet from the cup. In addition to water (perhaps because of it), geese had claimed squatter rights to the hole. And they had left ample evidence of being right at home. We watched as he dropped his cigar on the green, took a good close look at the lay of the land, and three putt. Painful, even at our distance. Totally distracted by his failure to sink the putt, he reached down for his cigar, uttering an inappropriate but consolatory epithet, and grabbed a goose turd and chomped down on it. The best part of the tableau was his disillusioned moment when he became aware of what he had done, that helpless feeling when you realize something has happened that you don’t understand. Out of respect, we tried to turn away, but the impulse to laugh was impossible to ignore. Talk about a botched hole leaving a bad taste in your mouth! So it is for believers, especially those of us who have known and loved the Lord Jesus for years and long for His coming. We find ourselves playing on the course of life wherein our actions and behavior are open to the scrutiny of those around us…for better or for worse and not always funny. Our journeys often include high-visibility battles set on a playing field where our best-hoped-for performances turn into compounded failures. As the Apostle Paul relates in Romans 7: 15, 18-19, “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing that I hate…For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish” (NASB). Not all our experiences have destructive consequences emotionally or physically (as in the case of some sins of commission), but just living through them brings a spiritual frustration that may sidetrack us. We all hope that when the time comes, when it is incumbent upon us to behave in a way that reflects the depth of genuine Christian character, we come through with flying colors and reveal to those around us how spiritually minded we are. Either that or we come across trite and shallow, stumbling through some scripture or another. I wish I could say that I have shined every time, after knowing the Lord for forty-nine years. I think we are often caught off guard, not in the least expecting something to happen that would challenge us in its immediacy, and we burst into it with our defenses down and perhaps our anger peaked and usually our mouths wide open. There goes a year and a half of righteous behavior on our part. We start over again to build up our good behavior quotient. I must remind myself that Jesus died for me while I was still a sinner, lost and without hope in the world. He didn’t wait for me to clean up my act and then await His acceptance. For as much as His glorious salvation has made us accepted in the beloved, and though He has forgiven our sins as far as the east is from the west, we still retain a sinful nature that is prone to raise its ugly head, often at the worst times. This journey we are on is not meant to be a report card of our triumphs and tragedies as we lumber along before His return. Indeed, we are being fitted for heaven according to His plan. I sometimes wonder if I am more concerned about what other believers think of me rather than about what Jesus thinks of me. What does the Bible tell us? That we are loved unconditionally by our Savior. Is it any wonder that He has commissioned His holy guardian angels to watch over us, fragile and bumbling as we are? If anything, His amazing love should resonate deeper and deeper in our hearts, wrap more tightly around our spiritual spinal cords, and thrill us as we age and grow in His things.