Since graduating college, I’ve picked up the game of golf, and I’ve loved it. And when I say ‘I love it,’ I really mean that I love it and I hate it. I’ve come to learn that golf is an extremely technical sport. Precision and fine-tuned mechanics is the name of game. There’s very little margin for error. Which means that the theme of frustration typically dominates the opening chapters of one’s own storyline with golf.
And while I’m still learning many disciplines about the sport—such as grip position, hip rotation, and weight distribution—one main thing I’ve learned is that hitting the ball on the ‘sweet spot’ of the club is absolutely crucial, if not the most important element of the game.
At the end of the day, it won’t matter how hard you can swing, how perfect your form, or how controlled your mechanics: If you fail to hit the ball on the ‘sweet spot’ of the club, there will either be little contact, little distance, or little precision… or any combination of the three. But, if you hit the ball on the ‘sweet spot’ of the club, you’ll likely get good contact, good distance, and good precision all at the same time.
What matters more than anything else is if you can hit the ball on the sweet spot of the club. In other words, it doesn’t really matter how hard you hit the ball, but if you hardly hit the ball in the right place, it will go where you want it to go.
It’s natural to think that we will successfully put distance on the ball if we swing hard enough and hit hard enough. But it’s quite the reversal: even if you hit the ball with great force—but just barely miss the ‘sweet spot’ on the club—the ball actually won’t go that far or that straight. But, if you swing comfortably and freely—not really trying to crush the ball—and simply strive to center the ball on the ‘sweet spot’ of the club, the ball will rocket off the club. You’ll get more distance and more precision that way.
My dad is in his 50s and I am in my 20s. I’m not huge, but let’s be real, I am much stronger than my dad and I can swing the club much faster than he can, too. But regardless, he still out-drives me every single time. Why?
Because he’s doing what counts: he’s relying on the power that’s in the ‘sweet spot’ of the club to do the work of propelling the ball down the fairway, whereas I’m throwing my own strength into the ball to do the work…and missing the mark. As a result, he’s getting distance and precision, and I’m getting a sore back (and bad shots).
The hard work of golf, therefore, is not in the hard swinging and hard hitting, but in the hard work of hitting the ball on the right spot. The hard work of golf isn’t actually ‘hard work’ per se, insofar as physical strength is concerned, but insofar as right contact is concerned. That’s also why golf is considered a sport for all peoples, too. The sport doesn’t require a lot of strength, just a lot of right contact. And it’s only until then that you’ll start to see long-term progress and success in your game.
And I think this profound principle in golf presents to us a pretty compelling analogue for the way that many things work in life, including the way that faith operates in the life of a Christian.
Take vocation or scholastic endeavors, for example. One could argue that it doesn’t matter how hard you work at your vocation or college major, because if that work simply lies outside the ‘sweet spot’ of your natural gifts and abilities, you’ll probably never see that much success or personal fulfillment in the long run. However, if you put even the slightest bit of hard work towards the ‘sweet spot’ of your natural gifts and abilities, that’s where you’ll experience better results and higher chances of long-term growth and satisfaction.
The gist of the principle is clear: it’s not about ‘how hard you can hit it’ that makes the biggest difference; it’s about ‘how well you can hit it’ that makes the biggest difference.
And the principle applies in the same way concerning where we direct our faith and trust, too.
In other words, it doesn’t matter how much faith you have, how hard you strive to obey, or how determined you are to grow spiritually—because if your faith is grounded in a wrong view of God or the gospel, you just won’t see that much progress. But, if you root even just a little bit faith and trust into the soil of a biblical view of God and the gospel, that’s where you’ll start to see more immediate results sprouting through the surface, more tangible signs of fruitfulness, and more long-term indicators of growth and fulfillment.
In that sense, playing good golf is a lot like demonstrating effective faith: With golf, if you hit the ball hard in the wrong place, it will be a much worse shot than if you hardly hit the ball in the right place. With Christianity, if you direct a great degree of faith in the wrong object, it will yield much less fruit than if you direct a small degree of faith in the right Object.
A faith hardly ‘hit’ in the right spot will always go further than a faith ‘hit’ hard in the wrong spot. Jesus himself conveys the idea that a small ‘mustard-seed’ of faith in the right thing is more powerful than a large ‘mountain-size’ of faith in the wrong thing (Mt. 17:14-20). It’s not the amount of faith that saves you or sanctifies you, but the object of your faith that does; so, even if you have a little bit towards the right thing, you’ll always be better off than a whole lot towards the wrong thing.
I think this is why the Pharisees (who were the religious elites) typically failed to ever know God in a real way, and exactly why the prostitutes and tax collectors (who were the religious outcasts) were typically the first ones to understand the real way of salvation: God’s grace. Indeed, the Pharisees had ‘mountain-sized’ faith in the wrong thing (the law) to save them, but the prostitutes and tax collectors had ‘mustard-seed’ faith in the right thing (Jesus) to save them—and it made the biggest difference.
Ultimately, playing good golf is a lot like demonstrating effective faith. It’s all about right contact with the right thing. That’s where power is found. That’s where progress is found. That’s where personal fulfillment is found. It’s of the object’s strength, and not of your own strength, so that you cannot boast.
That’s precisely why anyone can play golf—fat, skinny, old, young, weak, strong, man, woman, bad, good. And it’s on that same premise that anyone can be a Christian, too.
You can’t say the same for football, basketball, soccer, or swimming; it’s about the degree of your personal strength. Nor of other religions for that matter; it’s about the degree of your personal faith.
With golf and with the Christian faith, real strength is in the object itself, not in your own faith yourself.
And if you just have a little faith in the right thing, it won’t matter how messed up you are, how sinful you are, or how blind you are to your own weaknesses—just that little faith will go a long, long way—and in the right direction, too.
