Today is the second day of golf’s Ryder Cup (US men vs European men), and one of the hardest formats of the competition are the two sessions of Foursomes, sometimes referred to as alternate shot.

The format requires one of the two partners to tee off on the odd holes and the other the even holes. Then the two alternate hitting the ball until the hole is completed. It is difficult for a number of reasons.

First of all, golf is primarily an individual game, where the player is in complete control from start to finish. Now, he is not.

Now the coach has a say, and he must consider the two players demeanor and playing styles before pairing them together. At the time of this writing, there had been a lot of talk that Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods should not play together because the former will take risks at the mere suggestion of a challenge, and the latter is very clinical and calculated. Each could frustrate the other. Their previous pairing in 2004 was disastrous. (Let’s see what the coach did.)

It also requires both players to look at the course setup and consider each other’s strengths and preferences before deciding which player tees off of which series of holes.

Fourth, each individual is not in complete control of the game. He must play the ball his partner hit, regardless of where it landed.

Fifth, at least where the pros are concerned, the ball becomes an issue because each player is used to playing with his own type of ball; the feel, flight, and spin of a different ball can be offsetting.

But most importantly, foursomes is difficult because it goes against our human nature. It requires us to deal graciously with our partner’s mistakes, to be forgiving and encouraging, and to try hard to hit a shot that will put our partner in an advantageous position.

The legendary golfer Bobby Jones once said that golf is the closest game to life, but I would take it a step further and say the unique format of foursomes is because as much as we want to play the game of life all on our own, we can’t. We are always in community and partnership, and it is God who has placed us there. So we too must deal graciously with others’ mistakes, be both forgiving and encouraging, and work hard to help others use their talents and gifts even if it relegates us to the background.  

Paul understood this concept of “handing off” to others and “handing over” to God when he said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” (I Corinthians 3:6)

September 14, 2018, is a very special day. It is the first day that much of Redding, California, woke up to blue skies and clean air since July 23rd when the Carr Fire broke out.

For the last fifty-three days Reddingites have had to live with smoke obscured views and unhealthy to hazardous air quality (with occasional moderate air quality hours interspersed here and there). It is amazing how beautiful a blue sky with white clouds can be. Even the birds are coming back.

September 14th is a reminder that even though it might seem like the blue skies and fresh air are gone, they aren’t. High above the smoke they still exist, and eventually, that smoke comes to its end, and the blue skies and radiant sun reappear.

These last two months remind me of growing up in the Central Valley. The tule fog could be so thick at times that you couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of you and nothing at all above you. You felt locked in a misty cell. Yet, if you were to drive just a few miles up into the foothills, you would soon find yourself back in beautiful sunshine, a sea of foggy waves beneath you.

Sometimes our lives take on that same thick opaqueness. Our struggles envelope us, and we just can’t see any blue skies. We feel that God is very far away because God’s love and involvement are obscured by our problems, but in reality He is still very much there and very much involved. He hasn’t moved.

Since September 14th Redding residents have still had to cope with some smoke, but the blue skies are still visible, and life is returning to normal. Likewise, our life’s struggles and trials are for a season, and the God who has never left us has promised to help and restore us.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
(I Peter 5:10 NKJV)

One of the most overlooked ingredients of any movie or theater production is the lighting. However, the lighting is key in establishing mood. Good lighting designers can not only make an audience feel whatever they want them to feel (fear, love, sympathy, anger) but can also influence how they feel about the character.

There are reports that one highly acclaimed actress was extremely demanding on both the lighting director and the cameraman to make sure she was always portrayed favorably: soft lighting and angles that would not reveal her double chin and other flaws.

We may scoff at such vanity, but some of us do the very same thing. We work hard not to put ourselves in situations that might throw light on our flaws, hypocrisy, or sins. We carefully manipulate situations so that we are seen favorably. The problem is we do not have total control of our “outside lighting,” and as most of us can attest, eventually we are found out.

The Bible has much to say about light, and what is most interesting is that none (or very little) has to do with outside lighting. In fact, the outside (the world) is most often portrayed as darkness. The true light comes from within. And that light source is Jesus Christ himself. Look at the following progression.

“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.”  (Luke 11:34-35)

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” (John 8:12)

“Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12:36)

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:16)

If we really want to portray ourselves in the best possible light, then there is only one way. Let the light of Christ shine from within.

I have to give my golfing buddy Deanna credit for this topic. Three of us were playing the other day and prior to the first tee shot, Deanna told us that she had lost her favorite ball marker somewhere between the sixth green and the seventh tee box three days prior. Even though none of us admitted it, we were all doubtful we would find it. A needle in the haystack. Yet, all three of us vowed to scour that area when we got there … and then promptly forgot all about it.

As expected, none of us remembered when we left the sixth green. Then, for some unknown reason, when we were about a third of the way toward the seventh tee, I remembered.

“Didn’t you say you lost your ball mark between the last green and this tee?” I asked.

“I did!” Deanna replied, her memory jolted into working order.

“Where did you walk?” I asked, ready to go back toward the green and retrace my steps.

“Well, I crossed the bridge, and then came up an walked along the cart path.”

As if on cue, Michelle, our third, who was a few yards ahead, looked down by her feet.

“Here’s something,” she said, picking up a small, nondescript object (photo 1) and turning it over. “A blue daisy.”

“That’s it!” Deanna exclaimed.

And so it was. As you can see by the picture (which was a close up), when upside down the ball mark was virtually invisible … to the human eye, that is. But not to God. He knew exactly where it was all along. Yes, some might call this a coincidence, and if it was, it was indeed a very precisely and divinely timed coincidence. (aka not a coincidence)

We often think that God doesn't want to be bothered with the little things, but as the Compelling Truth website says in its article “Does God care about everything in my life, even the little things?”, “everything is little compared to God; He created the entire universe.”

Multiple verses speak to God’s attention to the little things: God caring about each sparrow (Luke 12:6-7); His feeding the birds and clothing the flowers (Matthew 6:25-33). One of my favorites, however, is Psalm 56:8 — “You number my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” God cares about our individual tears.

If you would like to read more about how much God cares about everything in our lives, then click on the following link (or copy and put in your browser) and be comforted and blessed.

https://www.compellingtruth.org/does-God-care.html

We have been moving right on up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs coupled with God's promises and now come to the “need for esteem”: the need to receive recognition, to feel important, and to receive respect from others and to respect ourself. In other words, the ego needs.

Many of us look to our jobs or hobbies to gain that recognition we desire, to feel important or needed, or to gain respect. Others look to fame or fortune. But it is interesting to note that anything we might use or look to in this world to satisfy our outside need for esteem can vanish in a twinkling of an eye.

Likewise, our internal self-esteem can also take a beating at the hands of others. Our inner strength can be depleted, our competence questioned, and our independence stripped until we doubt our own self-worth and lose our self-confidence and self-respect.

Therefore, it is a comfort to know that God has bestowed tremendous value on us as humans, so much so that He made us different from every other living being. We are the only ones created in His image. Man is the only living thing for which it is a sin to kill as the sanctity of human life is recorded throughout the bible. And it was only for humans that He sent His son to die.

As individuals we are no less important. Each of us was uniquely formed (Psalm 139:13-16), so much so that “the very hairs of [our] head are all numbered” (Luke 12:7).

Looking to others and other things to provide our sense of worth is a disappointment just waiting to happen. But to take our value from our creator and savior will lead us to having a happy, healthy, and very stable view of ourselves.