Golf

We were having a family dinner this summer to celebrate my son Tom's birhday and his wife Rebecka's parents joined us as well. We were sitting at the table overlooking a golf course which brought us to the topic of golf. Ben, Rebeckas' dad brought up this book that he had just read....and told Mel that he thought he would really enjoy it, being a golfer. Ben said, It is short but a really great book about how to view the sport of golf. The next day he dropped the book off and Mel took it on vacation with him and read it all the way through. We talked about it and the book interested me so much that I began to read. I am not much of a reader but this little book is more about life than it is about golf....even though the analogies are all geared toward the game of golf. The only problem was that I was reading Mel's book and I didn't have the freedom to color all over it when I read something that I wanted to remember.

Ok, you want to know the name: "Seven Days in Utopia"....and Utopia is a little town. How can you compare golf to fly fishing, or painting or throwing washers....this author Cook was a master. But as I read it I thought I don't even play golf and it makes me think I can go out and play today! Until someone gives us a different way of looking at things, a different perspective, we tend to stay engulfed in our neatly folded and pressed thoughts that we have been managing for years. It is hard to change them....and really who wants to....we find that we have grown pretty comfortable with them.

But this book...simply written....and short has completely changed my view of golf...but not only golf ...it has given me a new way to look at making decisions, or looking at people, and at appreciating what is before me. Life is a "big" picture but so many times we settle for the "little" close up view....and do not take into account that we are the little spot in the big picture. Our lives are pretty much wrapped up around ourselves and our families and friends...and we don't take the initiative to look beyond what is comfortable....and we focus on what is before us rather that what is beyond us.

If I look up and look out...I will see a horizon...I will see a path that God has set forth. But I first have to be willing to allow God to change my perspective. Everything is relative....but everything is relative to God. If we can and will set our minds on God's will...and then follow through with the nudges that God's makes within us...it is then that we are a moving part of His big picture.

There were several little lines in this book that hit me...here are a few....and you do the a\life analogies!

Golf is much like the Texas two step until you hear the music you are just a step counter.
1)I am a firm believer that most of us over-think the game. Golf is a game of hitting from point A to point B...Most everything else is interference. When
2)we strip off the extra baggage, leaving the interference behind, our method becomes clear.
3) Always set an extra place at the dinner table so that when destiny comes knocking at your door, you invite him in as if you had been expecting him.
4) When a seed is sewn in the right season its yield is great.
5) But the hero of the day is wisdom.
6) Son, you are well on your way to living life controlled by a score. Let me let you in on a little secret. Life in the end will be measured by significance, not a golf score. Significance will be defined by your character, relationships, values, virtues and faith...not by a golf score.
7) Success is a destination, while significance is an eternal calling.
8) People all have stories, they just don't have many listeners.
9) I can see now that when I accepted my comfort zone, the colors of life began to fade
10) See it, feel it, trust it...see it..look out and beyond, feel it...rhythm, balance, patience...trust it...trust what you know to be true...sign off on it...

1 Timothy 4:8
For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.


I know this is not suppose to be a book review...but this is a simple read with a tremendous amount of stories that give you food for God's thought.
It also is a great reminder of how we are to not only be followers of Christ but also listeners of stories of others so that we may one day be the helper who Christ sends to someone who needs a different perspective on the Big Picture.

Dear Lord, Thank you for the simple ways of communicating that you use to help us to understand your ways better.
Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!

Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!