Keep Your Focus

Psalm 141:8

But mine eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul

About a year ago I rekindled an old passion, golf. As a child I would walk the golf course with my dad as he played and on occasion he would allow me to take a swing or two. In my teenage years, and my early twenties we would play several times a week, and then-I stopped playing. The main reason I started playing again, it gave me the opportunity to spend time with my sons. One evening last week we had a couple of hours before the course closed, so I called Daniel and ask if he would like to play 9 holes of golf. He said yes, and we were on our way. The club manager reminded us of our time restraints and we agreed to return the cart on time.

We decided to play the back nine, if you are familiar with golf you will understand this statement. Even though the fairway is quite narrow, we both hit our shots in the center of the fairway on the tenth hole; jumped into the cart and headed down the cart path which runs parallel to the woods, so we could hit our next shot. Because it was the beginning of fall the leaves had begun to fall off of the trees and we could clearly see into the woods. It was a gold mine, golf balls were everywhere. All the golf balls that were lost during the summer had been hidden by the leaves, but now they were visible. We took to the woods, gathering as many golf balls as our hands could hold. We spent the next hour searching the woods. We spent so much time looking for golf balls that we ran out of time, we only played 3 of the 9 holes we paid to play, and you guessed it no refunds or rain checks. We were so distracted that the time just slipped away.

I learned a great spiritual lesson that day. Keep your eyes on the Lord. Don't get distracted. Stay on course. Paul said he finished his course while keeping the faith. Be aware of the distractions that will come in life but keep the faith. We are gifted with a certain amount of time, invest it wisely into the kingdom of God. Then we like Paul can say I have finished "my course". You guessed it, no refunds or rain checks.

Pastor Ken Smith