For some of you who are not into golf, I encourage you to still read this. Maybe you can relate to it in some way. Every avid golfer wants to do at least two things over their career. A hole-in-one, and to shoot your age. One afternoon on the 17th hole at Bent Tree CC, I hit a seven iron, and it rolled in. My one and only hole-in-one. But the other one is the story.
It is said that if you play long enough as you get older, you could eventually shoot your age. I was in Hilton Head on a family vacation. I was playing golf. It was a magical front nine as I was three under par making the turn. Never before or since. In golf or maybe other things, when you start focusing on score, it gets a little shaky. As I approached the 10th tee box, I became aware that this might be the day I shoot my age. I was 71.
I am on the 18th hole and hit a decent drive. My second shot on a par four came up about 12 yards short. I have a good pitching and putting game so looks like everything was settled. All I had to do was make par and shoot 71. I chose a pitching wedge for a pitch and run. Unfortunately, the ball landed on the cut of the green and the fringe and the ball went straight up in the air and settled on the fringe. I was 20 feet away. I made a good putt and ended up an inch from the hole. I shot 72, not my age.
So, Bill, where are you going with this? This week, I was visiting with a couple of friends at the Cooper Fitness Center. Salvation came up in the conversation and the believer friend said that he was sure that he was going to heaven, and I said, I am too. Then I asked the other friend what he would say. He said I’m not sure but hoped he might.
I’ve been witnessing to him for the last several years pretty well on a weekly basis. He loves when I share a verse with him. In fact, he asks me to do that. But he is so put out with religion which started early in his childhood that it’s difficult for him to understand grace. He has read the Bible numerous times over his lifetime and is very knowledgeable.
He knows there’s a God, he knows there’s a Son of God, Jesus. So, he knows about God, but he does not know God. That’s like my putt coming up an inch short. Close, but no cigar, no eternal life. John wrote about this in his epistle. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” I Jn 5.13. This is not a false confidence; it is a reality that the Holy Spirit reveals to a repentant sinner and as a born-again believer. That one inch…it’s all about faith and trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. I pray daily that my friend will yield to him and receive eternal life. Pray with me; his name is Jim.