July 26th, 2009....Is God Trying To Tell You Something?
I took up golf when in my teens and I understand very well why so many men have a passion for the game. My father bought me a set of clubs when I was about 15 years old. The putter in my bag today is the same one that I wrapped around a tree on the 18th green at Grover Cleveland Public Golf Course in Buffalo in the mid 60s. The 9 iron is the same one that I waded, chest deep, into the water to retrieve on the 3rd hole of a course in Monroeville.
I remember taking the bus to Hughes and Hatcher men's store in Pittsburgh to meet Gary Player and have him autograph his new book Gary Player's Golf Secrets (1964). I also was the only person I have heard of that lugged his clubs on buses to get to a course to play. Fortunately for me, I was never very good at the game. There always appeared to be a black hole somewhere down the right side of the fairway that sucked my drive into it.
My son plays golf and last summer I thought that I would practice a little bit on my own, and that maybe this would be a good pastime that we could share together. I went to a local driving range and put some tokens into the machine for a basket of balls. I guess that I figured that there was someone working inside the machine that would gently lower the basket of balls? With no basket in place, they started shooting all over the place. After looking around to see if anyone was looking, I settled in to hit a few. The first was o.k., the second sailed right, over the fence and on the 9th fairway of the golf course. Has anyone ever yelled Fore! on the driving range before? The third was at least in the driving range but the fourth was back onto the 9th fairway! I wanted to practice but cannot put other people's lives in danger doing so. I put every tip that I was given on hitting a straight ball into effect... moving my left foot forward...bringing my right hand over the top....but the ball went back onto the 9th fairway. I left the bucket of balls and came home.
I may have related this story in a previous blog, I know that I have told it often enough; David Wilkerson was a pastor in a small church in eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1950s. The newspaper stories of gang shootings in New York City stirred him so much that he went there to address these young men himself. The result was a book The Cross and the Switchblade and a movie of the same name starring Pat Boone. The result also, was Wilkerson establishing a church in an old Broadway theater and preaching there to this day, 50 years later. After David started to become established in NYC, his passion for preaching the gospel may have slacked off just a little bit. He read an advertisement for a classic sports car and thought how much he would like zipping around town in it. He and his wife travelled to New Jersey to see the car. It was just what he always wanted. He bought it and felt proud as a peacock on his ride back to the city. His wife asked him if he smelled something burning. Looking into his rear-view mirror, he could see smoke coming from his new car. It was then that his wife asked him a profound question that brought David back on course of preaching the gospel...David, do you think that God is trying to tell you something?
I would really like to be a golfer but, knowing my tendencies, I would probably abuse the blessing. I 'm no smarter than anyone reading this blog, the basket of balls certainly proves that, but anyone would have to put in the effort if they would expect to discern the times, identify the schemes being constructed and garner enough passion to want to make a difference. The Christian faith is no different. The tendency is to become quite satisfied with our born again experience, pat ourselves on the back, and settle into 40 or so years of what may be ignorant bliss. It's a good idea for all of us, on a daily basis, to look into that rear view mirror to see if God is trying to tell us something.
