The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling!

Lay and lie~

My favorite sport now is golf. When I was a young man my favorite sport was snow ski racing, and I did pretty well on the Far West Ski Association circuit. But as I got older the wear and tear on the body got to be too much, and I realized that my dream of going on to the 'big' circuit (Olympic) was just that, a dream, and at age 26 I gave up racing, but continued with recrational skiing for many years. 

As I got older (into my 30's) I picked up golf as a sport, and have enjoyed it since then. And even though I no longer play due to a number of physical issues I still love watching golf on TV, and occationally going out with my son and watching he and his friend shoot a round.

The primary rule of golf is that you must play the ball where it lays. If you move the ball either accidentally or on purpose in order (by rule) to improve your lie you are assessed a one to two stroke penalty, based on the situation. But this can be problematic especially for a high handicap golfer, that sometimes feels that this rule should only be for competitive golf, and not for the occasional player. This is because adding penalty strokes to an already high score seems unfair to many golfers. I have played with golfers that would try to change the position of the ball without notifying the other players, in an attempt to shoot a lower score and win the match. This is called cheating.

In our spiritual lives we all must 'play the ball where it lays', such that we recognize a spiritual deficiency and correct it. This is self-honesty, and is the first step toward righteousness. But many people believe that there is nothing wrong with believing a lie as if it is the truth, thinking that this will improve their 'lie', and fool God into believing that they are worthy of salvation, when all the are doing is cheating on the score card in hopes of winning salvation. A lie is never truth.