When my son, Karl, was about eight years old, I introduced him to the game of
golf. I gave him a little starter set of clubs and took him out to the course
with me. Karl would tee up his ball and whale away at it with his mightiest
swing. Usually he sprayed the ball all over the place. But since he could only
hit it 60 or 70 yards at best, his direction could be off by 20 degrees and his
ball would still be in the fairway.
As he grew up and got a bigger set of clubs, Karl was able to drive the ball off
the tee 150 yards and farther. But if his drive was still 20 degrees off target,
his ball no longer stayed in the fairway; it usually went into the rough.
Accuracy is even more important for golfers who can blast a golf ball 200 to 250
yards off the tee. The same 20-degree deviation which allowed little Karl's
short drive to remain in the fairway will send a longer drive soaring out of
bounds.
This simple illustration pictures an important aspect of the life of faith: Your
Christian walk is the direct result of what you believe about God and yourself.
If your faith is off, your walk will be off. If your walk is off, you can be
sure it's because your faith is off. As a new Christian, you needed some time to
learn how to "hit the ball straight" in your belief system. You could be off 20
degrees in what you believed and still be on the fairway because you were still
growing and had a lot to learn. But the longer you persist in a faulty belief
system, the less fulfilling and productive your daily walk of faith will be. As
you grow older you will find yourself stumbling through the rough or out of
bounds spiritually if the course you have set for your life doesn't agree with
Scripture.
For many adults, a mid-life crisis is the result of basing their concept of
success and fulfillment on the world instead of on the Word of God. Tragically,
many of our children and teenagers are heading for the same fall because their
beliefs are not founded on Scripture. As a result, their lives are often
bankrupt before they leave high school.
Neil Anderson Dr. Anderson, Freedom in Christ and Harvest House Publishers
www.ficm.org
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