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The weather has been absolutely beautiful here in the Blue Grass until just yesterday. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were gorgeous days with temperatures more indicative of June rather than March. Even yesterday, with all its storms and rain, the temperatures were mild enough that I didn't bother to even wear a jacket to work. It was that warm. So what did I do when I wound up with most of Monday afternoon off? Yeppers. I hit the golf course. I stayed right in Georgetown and played the Cherry Blossom Golf Course.

Cherry Blossom is a well designed and manicured golf course that rewards good shots and makes you pay (sometimes dearly) for the bad ones. Right from the first tee I was striking the ball well but just missing the fairway. The nice thing was that my short game was together. My pitching and putting saved me pars on the first two holes. The third hole I faced was actually hole twelve as I was playing the back nine. Hole twelve is a tasty little par three of some one hundred fifty yards which usually plays into the wind. It is surrounded on the front and sides by a pond so that the tee shot must be all carry and it must hit the green.

When I hit my tee shot I knew that I had cut it ever so slightly. Then the wind got it. Then it missed the green and the down slope got it. Guess what got it next. The water. Took a five on twelve just by being a little off. The next few holes were basically hit the fairway, hit the green and two putt. The par five fourteenth hole was a "get-one-back" hole for me as I birdied it. But eighteen was waiting. On seventeen my putter went south and I bogeyed it. Eighteen beckoned. I stood on the eighteenth tee thinking, "Look at all that area I have to hit with only 160 yards to clear the water." I was unafraid of the water. I had been hitting the ball almost dead straight for the last several holes. No fear.

My tee shot for eighteen went dead straight at the middle of the fairway. Unfortuantely, it also went dead straight up. I had skyballed it. 157 yards later it came down. Did I mention that it took 160 yards to clear the water? After a thinned three wood into a trap, a bounced-off-the-lip-of-the-trap shot into the water again, and a wedge to about twelve feet I salvaged my trophy on the hole; a snowman, a double par; I made 8. That's what happens when you get too relaxed and think you've got it licked. You take your shot for granted and the next thing you know you've missed the fairway and pretty much ruined a round of golf. Put the clubs up and take a look at life.

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13,14 Jesus' words to His disciples from the mount are important. Most people spray their life all over the course of their years. Then they rally to do something good and hope that's enough to save the round of life they have just lived. They pull sin to the left. They push careless living to the right. They whiff on righteousness and sky ball perseverence. They miss the narrow way all because they tried to do it on their own and ignored the Gate named Jesus. He is the Fairway that leads to salvation and the only course worth being on. John 14:6

"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

Storms Of Life