Job and Creepy Voices

So for those of you who don't know, I golf. A lot. Haha I was actually at a tournament today, the first part of a two day tournament, and it was at my home course. I was all psyched to do fantastic and everything, because the last time I played this course, I shot a 78, which is really good for a high school sophomore girl, especially one who has only been playing seriously for two years. I shot a 101, the worst I've shot all year, and definitely the worst score I've ever put up in tournament play.

It wasn't as though I was flipping out either. I was praying on every hole, asking God to just show himself in me and let me play to the best of my abilities. I didn't let my emotions come out and start cussing, as some golfers I know are prone to do. I didnt throw my clubs or act like a little baby because I was playing horrible, I controlled myself and just put my focus on what came next.

And yet I was still playing horribly. Why? That really bothered me. I was doing everything right, spiritually as well as literally playing-wise, but I was still getting no result. This made me think of two different things as i trudged along the eighteenth hole, putting up a 9 on the last hole and heading towards an 8 on the final par five. The first thing was Job. He lived his life righteously, keeping to all of the Lord's commands, and yet the Devil still destroyed his home, his family, his livelihood, and his health. He did everything keeping to God's commandments, and I know that, even though I thought I was doing the right thing out on the golf course, I was still sinning by questioning God's authority and judgement.

When life starts getting us down and we think to ourselves, "Now why on earth is God doing this to me?? I have done nothing wrong. I pray and read my Bible and do everything a good little Christian should, and yet life still stinks," we need to remember James1:13 "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man." Our failures and shortcoming are not caused by God, because God cannot exist near imperfection. We cause ourselves to fail by doubting God's abilities to lead us.

The second thing that I thought of was much creepier. I heard Nick, the CORE leader from Quest 2009, saying his lesson from "The Impossible Boat Quest." Okay the short explanation of The Quest was that we had to build a boat and get our whole tribe on it and swim halfway across the lake and back in thirty minutes. In essence, an impossible task that Nick knew we would fail. However, what he said to us afterwards has stuck with me ever since: "I gave you this task so that you would be okay with the fact that you failed. You have to be okay with the idea that you simply COULD NOT HAVE SUCCEEDED. Because you will never truly succeed in life. Period. There will always be someone better than you, smarter than you, faster than you. You will always be fighting to reach a new bar in this world, which takes your focus away from where it should be. You, as Christians, need to be okay with the fact that the only real success you will ever have is going to be in Heaven, in Christ, which is a success invisible to the rest of the world."

Don't be focused on winning here, because you will only set yourself up to lose next time. Be competitive and have fun and love what you do here, but never forget the finish line of your life's race.
Philippians 3:13-14: Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But this one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus.