The solitary revelation

When twilight mingles with dark and effort gives way to sleep, when dawn once more yields to the sun, even if the flag of his game had been at half-staff the day before, the golfer finds his way to the course to do it all over again in an air of hope, to face the resolute opponent within, to prove, to risk humility and assurance all the same, to find a way to say to himself, “I’ve got it.”

When those words rise in him, he is unaware how his language entangles him. He is inclined to speak in the possessive—my pro, my game, my caddie, my swing. The game never belongs to him. There is no ownership. He must simply play and come alongside in accord or discord. Some days will be better than others, some players will score better than him, but they will not always play better. Like each new day, every round measures him.

Myth-making and myth-seeking is not the game, simply the veneer. The golfer has been sold this pervasive idea of a perfect, repeatable swing. Such a swing does not exist. No two swings ever repeat. Only intent can be repeated. There is only what the ball does in response to the creative act of swinging. The ways of influence are many. No player will ever step into that same proverbial river.

He knows the game, in its complexity, is simple. He knows when the fundamentals of a good setup—grip, alignment, posture—are achieved, the game becomes the simple execution of force and direction, friction and inertia, windage and elevation, rhythm and balance—timing—tempo. His knowing is in the doing. Simple.

So, with time alloted or time made, the golfer finds his way to a place of his choosing to test what sleep and dreams yielded to him in the early waking moments of the day, the time when the problems he faced the day before seem to find a solution. He is compelled to action. This is truth time, the solitary revelation he is the only one gripping the club, the only one who comes against the shot at hand—against his past, his hopes, his imagined future, his discovery. He swings. Then, in the sliver of time when the clubface greets the ball and every good intention comes along, in this final moment of inhalation before the exhalation every golfer knows to be impact, where complexity meets simplicity, the golf ball, so innocent and still, reveals.

In this moment, if he has yielded to those principles and truths governing the game, grace affords him reprieve.

Must not the Christian also yield to those truths in Scripture, those God wishes us to know, revealed by Him to know Him, to become one with Him, to reveal His presence within that others may know Him, too. Hasn’t life’s journey afforded us grace for every failed moment that we may rise in the morning to start the day anew? Every truth revealed allows us one step closer to God, and every grace received is His coming toward us.