Inside Out

I went to Saddleback Church on Sunday and then played in Tim Salmon's Charity Golf Tournament on Monday. In between those two events I realized how much my life has changed...and yet how much I still want and need to "change" about myself. But how do I change something about myself?

The sermon given by Rick Warren was pretty simple, "Our sins are not as important as our intentions". In other words if our intentions are good but we make a mistake, it's okay because the important thing is whether or not our heart is in the right place. That sure sounded good to me because I admit it; I still struggle with stupid mistakes, putting my foot in my mouth and/or making selfish decisions at times. And then I think to myself, "I wish I could change...but change is one of the hardest things human beings struggle with.

Speaking of change, I would really like to change my golf swing as well. I have always had a rather poor "inside out" swing, which causes me to slice the ball to the right. So I signed up for a series of golf lessons and one of the first things the instructor said was, "Change is going to take time". In fact he said that since I had been using the same swing for many years, it would be hard to change and any success would require a sincere commitment on my part. In fact, he warned me that I would probably play a lot worse before I played better and guess what, he was right! My last few rounds of golf have been my worst in years. The problem is that when I play...I try my new swing some of the time and I try my old swing some of the time...but most of the time I'm simply caught somewhere in between, which isn't good at all.

After church on Sunday I decided that both the Pastor and the golf coach were right. If we have the right intentions and are hearts are committed, then even if we make a few mistakes along the way, we will still succeed in the end. Since that message applies to both our personal lives and our sports lives, I went straight out to the golf range to work on my swing (I know, there are more important things I should be working on) but I worked for hours on my new golf swing, over and over again, committing myself to sticking with it. At the Charity Golf Tournament it paid off. Surprising even myself, I played some of the best golf of my life and our team finished with a 12 under par round of 60.

I think I learned something very valuable. If we want to change something about ourselves, we have to fully commit to it. So with that in mind...I am going to pick one of my faults (I have a lot to choose from) and begin working on it right away. I will make the commitment to it...stick with it...and eventually I will change because the change is coming from the inside out!

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,

the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me.

~ Anonymous