The Golfer

There was rumbling moving closer and closer.  Black clouds were moving our way.  There was that smell in the air as the barometric pressure lowers and nitrogen escapes from the ground.  We were definitely going to get it.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a man at a driving range.  There he stood with his metal shaft pointed high in the air as he focused on that golf ball.  The only thing I think he could have been thinking was he paid for that bucket of balls and he was going to get his money’s worth.  I was transfixed as I watched.  I have never seen anyone struck by lightning and I figured if he was going to get it, I was going to see it happen.  Fortunately it did not.  What made it really sad was he had a horrible swing.

As I was thinking how stupid he was, the thought occurred to me that I too am that stupid when I eat things I know will clog my arteries, when I fail to exercise, when I tolerate being overweight and when I neglect my devotional life.  My IQ isn’t any higher than that guy with the golf club pointing to the sky.  Alas, it is so much easier to see other’s mistakes and ignore our own.   It is so grand that we have a Savior who was and is one of us.  He knew about human stupidity and hypocrisy. He talks about it in the Sermon on the Mount.  He said, “How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”  Alas, we, at least I, do it all the time.

 Written by Roger Bothwell on August 26, 2011

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org