Waves

I played a quick round of bad golf yesterday with a couple of the young-married guys from church. One of them plays at about my level; one of them is the kind of golfer that you want to beat over the head with a 9-iron because he is completely incapable of hitting a bad shot. Fortunately, he's a really good guy, so the temptation to go Tonya Harding on him has been supressed... so far.

I'm at a point in my golf game where I'm pretty frustrated. Since I've taken a couple of lessons, I've gone two big steps backward, which I expected, but which is still infuriating. When you're tweaking something with so many moving parts, you throw the whole thing off. But, you have to keep working through it, doing the right things even when you get wrong results, because ultimately it's going to pay off.

Yesterday, Adam (my own personal Nancy Kerrigan) was trying to comfort me after I threw my club (no Mom, I really didn't lose my temper and throw my club... okay, yes I did...), and he made a great point.

"Golf is a lot like the Christian life. You have to keep doing the right things even when they don't feel right. Even when you feel like you're making backward progress, you have to keep doing what you know is right. Then one of these days, everything is going to click together and you're going to see growth that feels like it took place overnight. But you have t0 keep doing the right things."

See why I want to hit him with a 9-iron?

No, seriously, he's got a great point; in golf and the Christian life. For those of us that are at a point where we don't feel like much is going right, we've got to keep doing what we know is right. You don't become a mature Christian (or a great golfer) over night. But if you keep doing the right things, even when they don't feel right, the improvement will come in waves. Practice the right things and be patient.