One Degree

When I was in high school I loved baseball. It did not always love me. I played it with passion and it gave me a demotion from left field to first base in return. In college I loved tennis. It liked me. I played on an inner - school league. I did ok. No trophy but no shame. Sometime life is a wash. For some reason I excelled in archery. You know. Bow's and arrows. I had never touched one until my freshman year at Lincoln-Way High School. We had a couple of weeks of archery every year. Something really odd happened my junior year. When it came time for the big yearly show down ... the round robin tournament to see who the best archer was ... I took 3rd place. Ok, actually I took 4th and the coach took 3rd but he didn't count. I have no idea how this happened. I just kept pulling back on the arrow, looking at the target and letting it fly. And the arrow kept hitting its mark. Nobody was more surprised than I was. I was actually getting some bulls eyes. The coach thought I was cheating. Heck, even I thought I was cheating. But there isn't any way to cheat with a bow, an arrow and a target. They had to admit it. I took 3rd. And I never picked up a bow and arrow again.

Then came golf. I never played it when I lived in Chicago. It was kind of forced on me by friends after our move to the St. Louis area. I came up with some used clubs somewhere. Eventually, after I had served my church for 15 years they actually gave me a set of new clubs. Let me be brutally honest here. I was hoping for skis. You know. Like to slide down mountains on the snow. But I got golf clubs and that was ok. Except that I really stunk at golf. One of the first things I learned was that golf balls are not cheap. This is especially true when you lose every one that you hit. Finally somebody taught me to watch where your ball goes and, as best you can, line it up with an object on the horizon. When it is time to go take your next swing simply walk toward that spot you have been staring at in the distance. More often than not this plan worked. I did learn one thing for sure. You have to really walk directly toward that object on the horizon. If you vary from it just one degree, well, over the course of maybe 200 yards (on days when the wind was at my back and I had eaten breakfast) you will wind up far, far from your goal. Your golf ball will be a distant memory, found by some lucky golfer behind you.

As I write this we are having our 2nd major winter storm of the still young season. Like our first storm this one is all about ice. I miss snow. Snow falls gently, lays quietly and generally does no harm. You can push it around, stack it up into the shape of a man, turn it into a ball and hit someone in the head with it or just leave it alone and eventually it will go away. But ice? Ice is a force to be reckoned with. You can barely stand on it, drive on it, or even bear to look at it after a couple of days. (Yesterday I climbed up on my roof to clean out my fireplace chimney and found a branch about as big around as a quarter sticking all of the way through my roof. It blasted through the shingles and through the wood! And I didn't even find it for nearly a month.) Last night we had a big old batch of freezing rain. I stepped outside this morning to find my driveway wet but my trees covered in ice. Hmmmm. It seems the ground temperature was above 32 degrees while the air temperature was below 32 degrees. So everything that was not resting on the ground was frozen while the ground itself was not. Right now a new batch of water is falling from the sky. I just stepped outside to check and guess what? It is rain. Just rain. You can hear the trees crackling in the darkness under the weight of the ice that fell last night. But at least for now no new ice is accumulating. You know why? I just checked on the web site that lists the temperature of the air at St. Louis Regional Airport, which is about one mile from my home, and I learned that the temperature is 33 degrees. See. I told you so. It only takes that one degree. Golf and winter weather have a lot in common. One degree makes all of the difference in the world.

And then there is God. (Do you realize how common that last sentence should be? There is ALWAYS God.) God has a purpose. He has a plan. He gives directions. Sometimes they come in the bible and sometimes they come through the influence of His Holy Spirit, the wisdom of another believer, or possibly an interesting set of circumstances. But God always has a purpose and a plan. My job ... your job ... is to trust Him and follow that plan. And the hard part is to do it accurately. It is so very easy to cut corners or try to take shortcuts. And then God's plan for you becomes like an errant golf ball. You will totally miss your assignment and somebody else will come along behind you and accomplish what should have been yours to accomplish. You only have to be off a little bit. One degree will do. Over the span of your entire life missing the will of God by one degree will have you totally OUT of the center of His will.

I do not find that acceptable. No way. No how. I want to walk straight toward God's assignment for me. I want to be propelled there like an archers arrow that is dead on its mark. I want to track it as if it were a golf ball made of gold. Nothing short of reaching the goal set out for me by my King will do. Right now I am in a bit of a wilderness state. I am having trouble finding and keeping my bearings. Many of my metaphorical objects on the horizon are no longer there. Some were people that are no longer active in my life. Some were plans and programs that have changed. Some were other unmentionable things best left between my Creator and me.

I will reach my goal. I will pursue it with ruthless love and ruthless trust. I will not back away from what I have learned because He paid the price to teach it to me. And when I finish the race, when I reach the target, I will find my bulls eye ... the face of the one who died for me. I will not be one degree off.

It is just not acceptable.