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December 2002 Table of Contents
Food For Thought
The Comfort Of The Quilt
By Derric Johnson
 When cavemen beat the ground with their clubs and uttered spine-chilling cries, anthropologists called this a form of primitive self-expression. Today we go through the same ritual... and it's called golf!
Golf combines two favorite pastimes...taking long walks and hitting things with a stick. Or as Mark Twain put it, "Golf is a perfect way to spoil a nice walk on a beautiful day."
As for me, I play golf once a year and I get more golf than some folks who play every week. I'm what you call a religious golfer. Every time I make a good shot...it's a miracle. Billy Graham said it best..."I never pray on a golf course. Actually, the Lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the course." After my first round, some executives from Titleist who had been watching came over and offered me a big contract not to play its balls.
A friend of mine said the other day, "I've been thinking about taking up golf, but I'm not sure I'll like it."
"I know a foolproof test," I replied.
"Really...what's that?"
"Easy...go find a pond and throw money into it."
One of the men in our church is an avid golfer and really very good at his game. Debbie asked me, "Why don't you ever play golf with Jack?"
"Would you like to play with a guy who is always improving his lie, moving the ball from behind trees, and cheating on his scores?"
"No, I don't believe I would," she answered.
"Well, neither does Jack!"
Whenever I do play golf the scores make a rhyme...for my partners it's "birdie, par, par,"for me it's "hardee har har!"
I have discovered this one truth...the difference between put and putt is that "Put" means placing something where you want it, and "Putt" is the inability to place something where you want it.
Reggie Jackson, the Hall of Fame baseball player sometimes known as Mr. October because he always saved his best playing for the season's end, was golfing one day with Arnold Palmer. "Baseball is a much more difficult game to play than golf."
"And how do you figure that?" Arnold asked.
Reggie explained, "In baseball there are 65,000 fans screaming at you and you have to hit a ball traveling nearly 100 miles an hour from a distance of a little over 60 feet away. In golf the fans are totally quiet and you get to hit a ball that's laying absolutely still."
Arnold Palmer didn't say a word, but on the next tee Reggie severely sliced a drive into the woods. Both Arnold and Reggie along with the caddies searched and explored until they finally found the ball in a little pond surrounded by reeds and trees. It was an impossible shot and Reggie groaned loudly.
Arnie said quietly, "What makes golf so difficult is that you have to play your foul balls. In baseball...you get another chance."
And that's true...in golf you have to play the ball where it lies...and in life you have to live right where God lands you. Sometimes that means success...and sometimes that means problems. So you have problems! So stop complaining! Who doesn't? Trials and difficulties are the common denominator of life. In the long look it's what you do with them that counts.
Three senior golfers were griping continually. "The fairways are too long," said one. "The hills are too high," said another. "The bunkers are too deep," complained the third.
Finally an 80 year-old put things into perspective. "At least," he noted, "we're on the right side of the grass."
It was in Junior High that I met the stoic master of mathematic mayhem: Miss Williams- dispenser of algebraic knowledge. KEEP SMILING was posted on every wall of her classroom. One might as well have hung KEEP COOL signs in the raging inferno of Hell. Nice sentiment... but hardly practical.
Being persuaded that my college career hinged on my success in Miss Williams class, I sought desperately to please her. Even stayed after class to impress her sometimes. (Didn't work. I still had to turn in assignments.)
One super-puzzling problem kept me in her presence one April afternoon. All my friends were long gone...enjoying the freedoms of after-school life. But I was determined to solve that problem. Finally I moaned, "I wish I knew the answer," hoping for some academic pity.
"The answer is easy," she assured me.
"Not for me," I protested. "Tell it to me and I'll go."
"Oh, no," she insisted, "It's working through the equation that teaches the lesson."
Four pages of calculations later, I was done. The answer? Zero! "All that work for NOTHING," I muttered.
"Not for nothing," she rebutted. "You just learned the difference between answers and solutions."
I never forgot Miss Williams...or her lesson. She taught me something valuable about the processes of God. The puzzles of life are to be worked out...not zipped through like magic. Getting to the answer is often more important than the answer itself.
Maybe that's why the Bible never says that Jesus is the Answer. It only proclaims that Jesus is the Way.
However tough life may be...it's better than the alternative. Life is not a cafeteria line where you can just pick out what you want. It is a full course meal...and you get it all from soup and salad to gravy and dessert. So you might as well decide to make the best of it.
He knows it's not good for me to have a lot of time when I'm coasting. I need constant pressure to keep me leaning on the Rock. When heavy storms come they push me to my knees...and what's wrong with that. If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song. Life can only be understood backwards...but it must be lived forwards.
Try this parable on for size...
As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before Him along with all the other souls. Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles. An angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life.
But as my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was. They were filled with giant holes. Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult...the challenges and temptations I was faced with in everyday life. I saw hardships that I endured which were the largest holes of all.
I glanced around me. Nobody else had such squares. Other than a tiny hole here and there, the other tapestries were filled with rich colors and the bright hues of worldly fortune and success. I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened. My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together...threadbare and empty. It was like binding air.
Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed...held up to the light and the scrutiny of truth. The others rose, each in turn, holding up their tapestries. So filled their lives had been. Then my angel looked at me and nodded for me to rise.
My gaze dropped to the ground in shame. I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes. I had love in my life...and laughter. But there had also been trials of illness and death, and false accusations that took from my world as I knew it. I had to start over many times. I often struggled with the temptation to quit...only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again.
I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life. I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly deliberated my life.
And now, I had to face the truth. My life was what it was...and I had to accept it for that. I arose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light. An awe-filled gasp filled the air. I gazed around at the others who stared at me with wide eyes.
Then I looked at the tapestry before me. Light flooded the many holes, creating an image...which was the face of Christ. Then our Lord Himself stood before me and with warmth and love in His eyes He said, "Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life. They became My hardships and My struggles. Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let me shine through...until there was more of Me than there was of you."
So cuddle up in the quilt He has patterned for you. Do you suppose that's why Jesus referred to the Holy Sprit as The Comforter?!
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