| At the age of eighteen I played my first tournament on the "European Tour." At that time, I had developed what golfers call, "Yips." Yips causes an uncontrollable twitching of a person's hands, that handicaps a golfer as he or she putts.
During my entire career I have tried to get this problem under control. Once, it caused me such difficulty that I had to putt four times from a distance of one meter just to get the ball in the hole. Those were tough times for me. I often thought of quitting.
I also won seven tournaments on five continents and became the number one ranked golfer in the world. I had a wonderful wife and had achieved everything that a golfer can dream of. Still, something was missing.
The most important thing in my life was golf and more golf, the next most important thing was me, and I found a little time left over for my wife. Now and then I prayed. I went to church, too. But when my golfing wasn't working right, I was unhappy and dissatisfied with my life.
The same week that I won the US Master's, Bobby Clampett, a friend and fellow golfer on the Tour, invited me to a Bible study. That night I heard for the first time that a person has to be "born again." I couldn't figure out what that meant. I was certain I could not be born and become a baby again at the age of twenty-eight. So I asked the discussion leader, Larry Moody, at the end of the hour what he meant by "born again." He opened the Bible and showed me John 3:3: "Whoever is not born again, cannot enter the kingdom of God." I thought I was a good Christian, but I had never heard that before. Larry explained to me that Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life and that he died for our sins. We can't earn eternal life with good behavior because we can never meet God's standards. We'll always fall short.
After that I understood that God loves me so much that he let his only son be executed, it was so clear that I should give Him and trust Him with my life. Since then, my life, my marriage and my entire worldview have been dramatically changed. I have different priorities now and they are now as they should be: first, God, then my family, and only then my career. I believe that everything works better when these are in the right order. We have many decisions to make every day, but the most important decision of our lives is the one about our relationship to Jesus. We either accept Him or reject Him. Jesus Himself said, "You are either for me or against me. Another choice does not exist."
|
|
