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When we first moved to the Georgetown area over two and a half years ago I found a ready golf partner in Donald Clark. Since that time Don and I have played quite a bit of golf together and I have watched him grow as a golfer. Golf has a lot to do with getting through certain barriers. The first is just being able to hit the ball solidly. The second is being able to hit it straight, or at least in the general direction you want it to go whether it fades or draws to get there. The third is getting rid of three putt greens. Most golfers just want to play regularly in the 90s and breaking those three barriers usually gets them there.

Don was playing well enough to play in the low 90s and the upper 80s when we first met. He set a goal of improving to where the 90s were no longer his regular territory. In our second year of play together he was consistently in the 80s with just a few minor barriers to conquer. He was still struggling with hitting the ball solidly due to what a friend of mine calls "amateur's syndrome", which means a golfer is still trying to pick the ball up with his iron shots instead of trusting the loft of the club to get the ball airborn.

This year Don wanted to log some rounds in the 70s and start making that move to the next plateau. He has taken some lessons and, while his tee ball is not as long as it was when first we met, his iron play has improved dramatically and his scores show it. He has shot 79 this year with me on a couple of occasions and was dreaming of getting that one extra stroke off his best score. That would mean a 78. Yesterday around mid-day I received a cell phone call from a very excited Don Clark. He had just shot a 39,39 for a 78 total on eighteen holes of golf.

Goals are important. There is that ultimate goal but then there are also the goals that get you there. Don's utlimate goal is to play consistently in the 70s and low 80s which puts him in the top ten percent or so of American golfers. He realizes that is a series of steps and not a sudden discovery. It is the maturtation process of his golf game from novice to competency. He will get there. Cool thing is, golf is the one sport that I feel most mirrors life. There are steps to growth in it and there is a level that still provides room for growth. Just ask Tiger Woods.

But the goal is the point. "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11-13To be like Jesus. It doesn't happen overnight. We can "get saved", as some call it, but with the next breath we start that struggle to maturity because we have just become a baby. We have the goal. Know what? The goal has us, too.

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

"As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man." Prov. 27:19