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Archive for September, 2008

Death by Hardening of Our Ways

In Fort Worth, Texas, there is a famous old golf course called “Glen Garden Golf and Country Club.” If you read any old golf books, you may come across this course. Started in 1912, it was been around for nearly 100 years. By any standard that is an old course in America.

My kids learned to play golf on that course, but that is not what makes it famous. It used to be a stop on the PGA tour, but that is not what makes it famous. It is the course where Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan learned to play the game.

It is a short, unchallenging course. Many courses start out that way, but over the years the course changes and the members spend money to upgrade and improve it. In the 1930s, a man named Marvin Leonard came to Glen Garden and offered to plan and finance the upgrades necessary to make Glen Garden a better course. The members rejected his plans. They did not want anything to change. Rejected at Glen Garden and at another course, Mr. Leonard decided to build his own course. He built the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Today it is arguable the most famous course in all of Texas.

In the years since, I have played many rounds on the Glen Garden course. It is still the same basic course it was in the 1930s. Other men have tried to update the course, but the members did not want anything to change. The old-timers liked things just as they were.

Since it was the course of his youth, my son played it again not too long ago. Everything was just as he remembered some ten years earlier. Well, there was one thing different. It was almost exclusively played by old golfers. I have no problem with that since most of them can beat me. It does, however, serve to remind me that if we want things like they always were, we will never reach people of another generation and we will never be all that we can be.

Paul said, “I become all things to all people.” He did not mean that he became a liar to liars or a cheat to cheaters, but rather than he could adjust his customs to fit those around him. He did not insist that others adjust their traditions to fit in with his.

For each new custom that comes along, we must ask two questions: (1) Does God care? If He does not then we cannot let a custom stand in our way. We must become all things. (2) Does this new “custom” stand in the way of reaching out to other people? If it does, then we must refer back to number 1.

The church of Jesus Christ must not fall into the behavior of a dying, old golf course. It is a disease that causes death by hardening of our ways.

Lonnie Davis

A Matter of Focus

Classmates.com is a huge website that lets long lost friends find each other. I guess before you sign up you have to decide if you really want to find each other. The other day I read the story of a lady who bumped into an old friend. While waiting for her first appointment in the reception room of a new dentist, she noticed his certificate, which had his full name. Suddenly, she remembered that a tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in her high school class some 30 years earlier. As soon as she saw him she discarded any such possibility.  She was sure that the balding, grey-haired dentist with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been her classmate. After he had examined her teeth, she asked him if he had attended the local high school. “Yes,” he replied. “When did you graduate?” she asked. He replied, “In 1971. Why?” “You were in my class!” she exclaimed. He looked at her closely and then asked, “What did you teach?”

Ouch!

There is a part of this story that I love. I love people who can enjoy life enough that they don’t feel as old as they really are. If we were more like these two, we would do better in life. There are three qualities about these two old friends that I would like to have:

1. They did not focus on what they didn’t have.

2. They did not focus on the negatives.

3. They did not see obstacles to a good life.

Okay so they didn’t have youth. So what? They had the wisdom that comes with a lifetime of living. Maybe one of them didn’t have hair, but he had an education that caused others to call him Doctor. One of them was at a dentist, but at least she had teeth that the dentist could work on.

So many times when God closes one door for us, we stare at it and grieve so long that we never see the two doors that God has opened. I love God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11. “’I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” You must believe that God has good plans for you. Your joy depends on it!