Westmeath, Ireland
It was a chicken curry kind of day . . .
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
This evening when we sat down for dinner at Lacken House I was informed that we would be having chicken curry with rice for dinner. That was a perfect ending to a pretty much perfect day. I LOVE CHICKEN CURRY. Don’t know why or when it started but its the type of flavor that suits my palette. What an enjoyable meal that was. Not just cuz the food was great—the fellowship and laughter was just as (as they say here in Ireland) brilliant! We had a great day!
From the moment the campers arrived today I could tell something was different. They were there ready to go. They would go out of there way to engage the staff with comments or action. We connected. the focus today was on wedge play and scoring slated to begin with Anders hitting shots from 50, 75, and 100 yards. But for some reason I ended up doing a spare of the moment exhibition hitting driver off my knees. The kids loved it. Then I turned around and started hitting left handed. It was so much fun to see them light up with joy because of that.
There is something that really set in for me today. I have an overwhelming sense of appreciation and gratitude to the Lord for giving me the ability to not only play golf at a high level, but communicate it as well. Yah, I may not have played the PGA TOUR but I have been given so many tremendous experiences through this game. It is truly an international language and I have come to learn that you can change a life by changing a golf swing. What a joy!
Each day after lunch there is a short 15 minute talk given to the campers by one of the staff. We are using the core values for FCA (excellence, integrity, teamwork, & serving) as our guide and today was my turn to speak. Jim interviewed me about integrity. This is a topic that I have thought about at great length for many years. I also have personal stories that worked great with the topic. First being when I knowingly signed for a lower score in junior college and was so convicted that I confessed to my coach at the risk of losing my spot on the team. And the second being when I got disqualified in 2003 from 2nd stage of PGA TOUR qualifying for owing up to bad procedure on a ruling.
Sharing all of this ultimately led to Jim asking me why I would make those decisions. It gave me the perfect opportunity to tell the campers about the point in my life when I had to make a decision about what I believed when it came to my religious upbringing, God, and the Bible. Reality is, you either believe it—or you don’t. It can’t be both.
What I said to them was the following and it is a good reminder to me on a daily basis. If you read the Bible you will encounter verses like John 10:10 where Jesus says, “My purpose is that they may have a rich and satisfying life.” (NLT) But then you see all of the passages where He talks about love, grace, kindness, purpose, and a whole host of other topics. There is only two possibilities here when I think of why more people do not accept Jesus for who He is. They either don’t know He said these things or they have bad information. Because when I think about the offer of a rich and satisfying life—who turns a deal like that down!
So please pray for us. Pray that God would continue to soften the hearts of these kids so that they will open up in their discussion groups about where they are really at in life. I appreciate all of you so much.
Kingdom First,
BB
Posted on
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
by Ben Bost