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THE PATIENT SHOWS NO IMPROVEMENT #1

DOUBLE-BOGEYS YESTERDAY, DOUBLE-BOGEYS TODAY, DOUBLE-BOGEYS FOREVER

There are enough bad-golfer stories floating around about ME out there that I'd delighted to share some from another member in the foursome. Our writer/producer, David Smith, tells about a time where he and his missionary dad, Ken Smith, were shooting a round on a beautiful little nine-hole course called Fraser's Hill, up in the cool mountains of Malaysia. But even though the mountains were beautiful and the course was beautiful, his dad's score was anything BUT beautiful. Shots were flying every which way but straight.

They got to Hole #11, which is actually Hole #2 the second time around. This was an easy little par-3, a nine-iron shot across a small gully. Maybe 105 yards. So David watched as his dad teed up, took a practice swing, and then hit a sorry little blooper off to the left. It went, oh, maybe 60 yards is all.

Well, David, who was a 12-year-old kid at the time, said to his dad, "Why don't you just take a mulligan?" Speaking from vast experience, I can explain to you that a mulligan is a freebie, a second shot when you've had a lousy drive. You never do it in a tournament, of course; but once in a while, playing just for fun, us non-PGA guys will just take one mulligan per 18 holes. Bill Clinton takes about six, from what I understand. And so David offered his dad a chance for a redeeming second shot.

"Okay," his dad said. "I think I will." He got out a second ball, teed it up, took a practice swing, hit the mulligan drive . . . and lo and behold, it went exactly in the same sorry flight plan as the first drive. A weak little Texas leaguer, off to the left. In fact, it landed in the grass, and rolled — like it had eyes — to within ONE INCH of the first ball.

David described it later: "There those two balls lay, sixty yards away, LIKE a pair of eyes staring at us . . . a sad testimony to the inability of the human race to ever improve itself."

Well, just the other day David and his dad were out on the links again — now here in Southern California. His dad is about 70 now, still hacking away with that ineffective nine-iron. Still missing two-foot putts. Still needing mulligans to get through life. And David, after reminding his dad about those two seeing-eye drives on Hole #2 in Malaysia, asked his dad: "When you were a young man, didn't you shoot about 105, 110?" "Yeah." "And then when we were out in Thailand, in the mission field, about 105, 110?" "Yeah." "And now that you're retired and can get out and play more often . . . about 105, 110?" A long pause. "Yeah."

Well, the conversation should have stopped right there — and really, David and I can pretty much give the same testimony about what it says on OUR golf cards too. But he said to his dad: "All those years playing. Fifty-plus YEARS of golf, golf, golf . . . and not the slightest, discernible BIT of improvement! Not one OUNCE of better golf!"

David and his dad are in therapy now, trying to repair the broken relationship. Actually, their scores are quite similar, and they get along fine. But you know, friend, in the spiritual realm, some of us are driving in the same golf cart they are. We look back over the last thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years . . . and we just don't see the golf score getting any better. We had a bad temper in the 1960s, when LBJ was president, and we're not doing much better here in 2002 The swear words that lurked in our brains when we were in sixth grade are the very same words that crowd our thoughts NOW, here in August of 2002. (Especially when we shoot a 110 on the golf course.) We found sermons boring in high school, and — hate to admit it, but — we're still dozing off in this new millennium. And we say in our evening prayers, "Thank You, Lord, for justification . . . but when is SANCTIFICATION going to ever kick in? Why don't I get any better?"

I remember when we did a radio series a few years ago, entitled Can Jerry Seinfeld Make It Into Heaven? And maybe you remember that one of the NBC slogans of that hit sitcom, besides "It's a show about NOTHING," was this: "No hugging, no LEARNING." Elaine and Jerry and Kramer and, especially, George simply DID NOT EVER IMPROVE. In 178 episodes they went from shallow to shallower to REALLY shallower. There was no such thing as learning lessons, or repenting of a mistake, or seeing the error of your ways, or growing up the slightest little bit. We found a quote from Tom Shales, a writer for the Washington Post, who made this keen spiritual observation: "Seinfeld is about the human condition. And the human condition is basically a mess."

And you know, the same thing is true in the Word of God. People there were just like us: bad golfers, weekend warriors, a motley collection of George Constanzas. Do you remember the story of Jacob — the younger brother of Isaac and Rebekah? What was his defining characteristic there, living at home with his twin, Esau? Well, he was a sneak. He was devious. You can read how he put on his brother's red flannel hunting shirt, and even put animal fur on his arms so his blind old daddy would think he was his hairy older brother. Talk about sly! Genesis 27 would make a pretty decent Seinfeld script, except that they've finally gone off the air.

Well, Jacob has to run away before Esau kills him. But for the next twenty years, it's just one more trick after another. He's a slippery, clever guy; that's all there is to it. Laban tricks him, and Jacob tricks him right back. He makes himself rich off his Uncle Laban through crafty Wall Street deals. When he and his wives and his herds finally make their escape — at two in the morning, of course — he hears that his brother is on his way to meet him, with a posse of 400 banditos. So he responds by dividing his family into two groups, hoping that if one is captured and destroyed, the other half will get away. I guess that's a logical tactic . . . but again, that's what it is: a tactic, a strategy. Instead of simply trusting in God for his salvation, he's still trying to trade lentil stew for what's behind Door #2. Trying to fulfill heaven's promises while bypassing heaven, doing it in his own power.

Well, there are those who suggest that this is simply how it's meant to be. We're destined to always play bad golf, and then it's God's job to erase that score of 115 and put a 72 in its place. That's the Calvary system, and so it's all right — the theory goes — to just keep hitting our tee shots in the water and laughing about it. In Philip Yancey's wonderful book, What's So Amazing About Grace?, he quotes from a poem by W. H. Auden. It's entitled "For the Time Being."

"King Herod shrewdly grasps the logical consequences of grace," he writes. "‘Every crook will argue: "I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged."'"

So is that the way of it? Curse all your life and cheat all your life and burn with anger all your life . . . because grace is there to cover it? Well, friend, grace IS there to cover it — but it's not very fulfilling to be angry all your life. It doesn't make the Christian faith look very compelling if you're a hopeless adulterer. And in the final analysis, it doesn't bring YOU happiness to be stuck in sin for fifty years, to endlessly shoot 115's on the golf course of human growth.

We get letters here at The Voice of Prophecy all the time, and many of them are filled with heartache. A bad habit, a hurtful tendency has held sway over someone for six DECADES! Drugs or jealousy or gambling or shoplifting. Are they happy about it? Is it a joyful journey: sin, repent, sin, repent, sin, repent? No, it isn't. But why does it have to be this way?

The apostle Paul must have known what it was like to take more than his share of mulligans in life. You remember the famous soliloquy: "What a wretched man I am!" It's found in Romans seven, by the way. "I DON'T do what I want to do; I DO do what I DON'T want to do. What's the matter with me? Why don't I get any better?!" And he observes, rightly so, back in verse 21:

"I find this LAW at work."

Playing bad golf and staying spiritually small seems to almost be written into the software of our souls. But it's the same apostle Paul who, just one chapter earlier, debunks the idea that this is how it OUGHT to be for us.

"What shall we say, then?" he asks, as he totals up yet another bad golf score. "Shall we GO ON SINNING so that grace may increase? BY NO MEANS!" "God forbid!" says the King James.

Friend, I'd like to tell you two good pieces of news. First of all, God has a plan for us to play better golf. But, if you are simply a TERRIBLE golfer — spiritually speaking — if something inside of you just DRIVES you endlessly down a hurtful road, DRIVES your golf cart into one swamp after another, God has good news for you too.

So stay tuned. Our tee-off time tomorrow's the same as today.