The Sweet Spot

I am not great at golf, but since my early twenties, I have enjoyed an occasional round.  It’s a wonderful, and also frustrating game, whereby — just the tiniest change in a grip, how you hold your head, the speed at which you swing the club — can mean the difference between hitting the trees and hitting the green.  It’s a bit of a love/hate relationship.  

Whether we are playing golf or just doing life, we are always looking for the sweet spot.  It is that place where —when you hit it — you know it.  It seems to make every shot excellent, effortless, effective.  So much so, that you try to memorize whatever it is that you are doing so that you can replicate it.  You are at the top of your game. You feel unbeatable.

Until the next hole, or the next game, and suddenly you find you are out in the woods, nowhere even close to the fairway.

Ahh life can feel like this sometimes. 

Why does it look so easy for others, right down to their matchy-matchy bags, and their hair that they manage so brilliantly to keep tucked in a neat pony beneath their caps?  Seriously.  Is it really that easy?  Do they always hit the perfect ball? Are they always at par?

I am not ashamed to say that I am not one of those gals.

Life comes at us from all directions.  We are constantly trying to keep our proverbial ball in play, and look good while doing it. But we can’t guarantee how it’s all going to turn out.  Storms hit.  People are unpredictable.  Our efforts and our expectations wax and wane.  We have to roll with it and believe for the best.

Sometimes we swing the club, and sometimes the club swings us.

We live most of our lives between two extremes — Success and failure, joy and sorrow, peaks and valleys. The between place, is where we find peace.  The between place, is where we come to understand that life is a mix of both.  The between place, is where real happiness lies.

Sometimes, the wind is at our back and we feel like we are in the zone. We have momentum, our ends are meeting, our hearts aren’t hurting, everyone is well.  We appreciate that life is good.  We are grateful for our blessings.

It’s when we get inside our heads, convincing ourselves that it is —or should be —more one way than the other, that we get into trouble.  We think that to be happy means we never have cloudy days, our scores are perfect, and we shouldn’t be encumbered with day to day problems that everyone has.  We lose sight of the flag.  We go searching for a fairway that doesn’t exist.

I guess what I am trying to say here, is that faith is our sweet spot.  We are not intended to do everything right.  We are going to mess up.  Life is going to offer up its share of mishaps and misfortunes.  But like a good caddy, God is going to carry our burdens and help us make the most of our worst shots.  With Him, we will always hit the green no matter how far we feel lost.

Faith will give us grace when we need a do-over or a mulligan.  It will enable us to see a way out when we feel hopeless.  It’s an umbrella when the skies open up.  It takes over for us when we want to give up or need to just ride it out in the cart for a while. 

I wish I knew why we sometimes have to endure the lousy hits.  Why it seems that no matter what we do, we are helpless to change the trajectory of where we land.  Why there will be people who we thought had our backs, and instead are off on some other course entirely… It seems that some folks will never learn that the grass really is not greener somewhere else.  

God has better for you just up ahead.

All I know, is that if we stay in faith, He has a way of turning around our game.  He knows where the hazards are, where the sand traps lie, who is rooting for us and who’s against. He is good at handing us just the right club, or miracle, when we need it most, and His timing is always perfect.

Know that when you are struggling, sometimes it’s just a little tweak, a remembrance at how God has gotten you through before and how He will do it again.  Maybe you need to check the posture of your hands and not grip too tightly to things and people that are no longer good for you.  Maybe you need to keep your head down, and know that God is in control. 

Maybe you need to believe that God really does have you in His sweet spot, and that He’s working it all out for your good.

Keep swinging.  He’s holding the flag and has you in His sight.

You can do this.

Swing, girl. Swing. You’re doing just fine.