I’m a walker and Maxine is a golfer. One day, we decided to try each other’s sports. Maxine caught onto walking easily enough – after I talked her out of robe and slippers and into a fashionable jogging outfit (her choice) one bright summer day. Then I had to try her enthusiastically-endorsed sport of golf.
Picture me standing knees slightly bent, feet apart, head down, arms straight but relaxed, fingers interlocked around a shaft of a golf club that looks like only half of it survived a mine explosion, and my eyes fixated on a small, pocked-marked ball.
“I have to tell you, Maxine, this stance feels very unnatural.”
“Good! You must be doing it right, sweet thing,” she said.
Unlike golf courses in Canada where fat worms come to the surface to breathe and tell jokes, Minnesota golf courses challenge the audacious golfer in the art of survival. It was like taking a trip into the wild kingdom that was complete with throngs of gnats, swarms of mosquitoes, and clouds of dive-bombing deer flies.
My fashion-conscious friend with curlers still in her hair said, “It doesn’t matter how you golf – just so you look good.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Keep in mind, girlfriend, golf is all about riding around in a golf cart, sipping on tall lemonades, watching soaps on a miniature TV, and getting out of the cart one in a while to hit a ball during commercials.”
I nodded. My first ball landed in the woods.
“Isn’t it ridiculous how they design golf courses in the middle of a woods?” she tsked, tsked.
I smiled politely.
“Just get in,” she said, patting the seat in the golf cart. “We have to get the ball in some hole that’s so small, it has to be marked by a flag stick.”
“Maxine,” I said, “golf is fun, but it’s really a bogey way to goof up a good walk.”
“Nah. That’s just par for the course.”
Frivolous story of Maxine and me? Absolutely! But, it demonstrates the insignificance of man’s focus. It’s like chasing after the wind compared to what God has to offer. He offers the gift of forgiveness of sins through the finished work on the cross of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who was crucified and was raised from the dead. Have you ever wondered why do we tenaciously strive after things of this world as though this is all there is? Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:2 , “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” Solomon concludes by saying, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.” Isaiah agrees as he quotes God in Isaiah 43:7, “Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.” My conclusion is that the whole purpose of man is to glorify God.