"God and Golf" (Part 2)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV).

Following our analogy of playing the game of golf and living the Christian life, the first thing we must master is the right stance. The proper stance in golf is as varied as golfers. There is an open stance where the golfer will turn himself more toward his target, thus getting a quicker turn on the ball and more accuracy. There is a closed stance where the golfer turns more away from the target, again hoping to get a quicker turn on the ball for greater accuracy. There’s a straight stance, a stooped stance, and perhaps a dozen more we may describe, all of them designed to help the individual golfer achieve greater accuracy. One thing is for sure, the golfer must have the right stance for his body to be as accurate as possible!

That’s where we must begin in our Christian lives. We must have a stance. The writer urges us to throw off everything that hinders us. The word recalls the athlete competing in a race. The runner needs to get rid of every extra ounce of weight in preparation to run. It was not uncommon for the runner to race with no more than a loin cloth. The fewer the clothes the runner wore the less the weight, and therefore resulting in more speed.

There are many things that could be weights as we run through our lives. Perhaps the greatest of these is apathy. There are many problems facing our world today. We have problems with poverty, racial injustice, crime, and violence. And, though we must not ignore the problems of this world hoping they will simply go away on their own, the root of all these problems is in the many empty solutions people try over and over with no success for their hurts and disappointments. They need someone to demonstrate by their lives a stance firmly rooted in a full commitment to Christ! That’s the right stance!

That will look a little different with each of us because we are all created with unique gifts and talents. The end result will be the same. We will begin to run the race set before us with less weight. It’s not about doing good things. It is about doing a God thing! That can only be done if you are consciously operating at your peak. That starts with a firm stance in Christ. How’s your stance?