I’ve never been much of an athlete, because coordination, quite frankly, isn’t one of my gifts. The one sport I ever played with really any consistency was golf. In college, one of my sorority sisters was the only woman on the golf team. One Thursday night, she pleaded with us, if anyone has a set of clubs, please join the team or it will cease to exist. Well, I had a set of clubs – my father is an avid golfer and he’d had an old pair of his clubs cut down and given to me. So, I thought, why not. My very first tournament was also my very first time to play an entire round of golf. I can remember the first time I was paired up with someone from another team. Each of us had to keep score for someone else and you could tell that this one girl who was taking mine was being very diligent as I began. But slowly, it was ever so apparent, that I wasn’t going to beat her. In fact, I wasn’t even going to play an entire hole all the way through. You see, we had this rule, that if you got double par on a hole, that you could simply take that score, pick up your ball and head to the next hole. So, at the end of the round, my score was 144 (double par of 72)– or as my friend Ben used to affectionately call it, buck 44. That was my score for each and every match.
You know I thought to myself, this game is fun, and it’s nice to know that you can play a sport and not be competitive. But, I guess it was that easy, because I wasn’t really that good at golf and I kind of knew that going in. However, when it was something I was good at – it was a whole different story. Athletics wasn’t my gift, but I always did well in school. Suddenly, the competitive spirit that most people feel on the field came out in the classroom. I might not have been peeking at the scores of my opponents, but I was trying to see the grade on my classmates test. Then afterwards, depending on their score, I would either say to myself – “at least I didn’t do as bad as that guy” or “I should have studied harder.” As I read the passage for today’s GPS guide, I found myself resonating with the last couple of verses. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.” Most of us can agree that on the whole we are truly happy when others succeed, and that we appreciate the gifts that others have to offer. However, somehow things are different when we share the same gifts as someone else, or have the same goals as they do. We turn into people who are jealous of others’ success and flaunt our achievements.
But, truth be told, I had a lot more fun playing golf in a spirit of fun than I did taking a test with a spirit of competition. And that’s really what I think that Paul was talking about. If we live in the Spirit, and don’t allow competition, envy, and conceit to rule our lives, then we will have joy in our hearts. And we’ll be kind to one another, patient with each other, and generous. Peace and gentleness will rule and we’ll practice self-control. Above all, love and faith will rule our hearts. There truly is more happiness in our lives when we live in the Spirit.
