7/31/2023

When I was a youth and then a young adult, I played golf.  A lot of golf.  One day I played 54 holes of golf, walking every one of them (as I said, I was young!)

I haven’t played golf in a long time.  Why?  I gave it up when I got married.  Why?  Because I wanted to stay married.

I knew what I wanted my priorities to be.  Second to God, I wanted my relationship with my wife to be my priority.  Was playing golf bad?  No.  It just wasn’t as high a priority for me as my relationship with my wife, Debbie.  I knew myself, and I knew the time golf would take up in my life, and I decided I wanted to prioritize the time I had her and eventually with our children even though it meant letting go of something.

From playing golf, I learned something about letting go.  Developing a good golf swing usually requires letting go of a poor swing.  If I was unwilling to change my swing, I would never become a good golfer (and some would say I never actually did become a good golfer—which some of you might say is the reason I gave up golf!)

What I’m trying to get at is that setting priorities and letting go of lesser priorities is usually needed by all of us to develop into the Christ-like persons God wants us to become.  What lesser priorities might God be calling you to let go of so that you can develop into the Jesus follower God intends for you to be?  It’s a question each of us is confronted with daily.

Keep this in mind.  If we’re holding on tightly to things of lesser importance, we’ll not have the time and energy to invest in what’s more important.

So, here was the deal for me.  Get real.  Don’t play.

How about you?

-Michael