Golf and Life

In my twenties, I was a golf fanatic. In fact, truth be known, I became a golf addict! I couldn’t get enough of playing golf. I tried to get out every day that I possibly could to try to improve my golf score. At night, I would replay each hole in my mind to see where I did right and where I did wrong. I would have golf dreams in my sleep of playing at championship courses. I was just plain hooked on golf!

Of course, this addiction played havoc with my family life. My wife and two very young sons suffered from lack of my attention. All the time spent on the golf course was time away from my family who needed me. I professed my love for them, but the truth was that I loved myself and my golf game more. Had it not been for my loving and patient wife, I would have blown my marriage completely.

One day (I can only explain it as a miracle of God), I saw my addiction and what it was doing to my family and to myself. I put my golf clubs away in the closet and QUIT GOLF COLD TURKEY! I did not play another round of golf for 10 YEARS!

OK. Fast forward through those 10 years. My father liked to play golf and he didn’t know about the circumstances of why I didn’t play. He asked me to play a round with him and I reluctantly agreed. As we began to tee off, he told me that he played NATO golf. I said, “What is that?” And he replied, “NATO – Not Attached To Outcome.

In other words, don’t worry about the score, just enjoy the challenge of hitting each shot as well as you can. When it goes off track, go find it and figure out the best shot you can hit from there. Let the score take care of itself and even if you don’t have a good round you still get to enjoy a walk in a beautiful park and the friendship of your partners.

Perhaps we should all learn to live each day “Not Attached To Outcome”. Wouldn’t we be truly free as God’s own children if we could do the same on our own spiritual journeys? Instead of being so focused on the outcomes WE desire, we could simply trust that regardless of the outcome, God is doing HIS work in and through us.

Now instead of wasting our time by trying to get God on our page, we can simply enjoy our fellowship with Him as He moves us to His page. And Jesus Christ living in us WILL ultimately move us to His page. And believe me, it is a lot more peaceful walking with Christ on His page than constantly trying to figure out how to get Him on yours.

What Christ has been doing in you since the day you came to know Him is to liberate you from your own agenda. He knows that your ability to live in His rest, peace and joy will not come when you get everything you want, but when you are not attached to outcomes.

Certainly He has far more to do in my life along these lines, but I feel like I can walk into most situations now with a freedom to live without catering to my agenda. I am more excited about what He might do than what I think He should do.

Yes, there are still times I would like Him to change some of my circumstances in ways that would make it easier for me. Now, however, I have a healthy suspicion that the way I would go about anything in my life and the way Christ would are probably polar opposites.

So if you find yourself denied of your most passionate expectations, just consider that Christ in you is doing something more extraordinary in you than you have yet grasped. Christ is expressing His love to you at a deeper level so that you will grow gradually, day by day, into the lifestyle of a child of God. This is NATO LIVING!

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