I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25).
Every June, our club in Jackson Hole hosts the first tournament of the season. I always find myself praying for good weather because June in the Tetons can bring sunshine, rain, wind, or temperatures cold enough to make every swing feel stiff.
The tournament has become one of my favorite weeks of the year. Beyond the golf, it’s a chance to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, and be reminded that the relationships are often the best part of the game.
It’s a two-day four-ball event with both gross and net competitions. This year, a friend from Atlanta was my partner. It was his first season at the club and his first opportunity to play in the tournament. By God’s grace, we played wonderful golf together and were fortunate enough to win the gross division.
The event also uses an eclectic format. You play eighteen holes one day and eighteen the next. On any hole where you improve your score during the second round, the better score replaces the first one. If you made bogey on Saturday but birdied the hole on Sunday, the birdie became your score.
The bogey simply disappeared.
There was no averaging the two scores, no footnote explaining yesterday’s mistake, and no reminder of the failure. Only the redeemed score remained.
Most tournaments remember every mistake. One bad hole can cost a championship. But this tournament is different.
Standing on one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world, with the Grand Tetons filling the horizon, I suddenly realized something that had somehow escaped me after all these years.
I finally understood why the tournament had always been called The Redemption. The old score isn’t ignored, excused, or averaged with the new one.
It is simply replaced.
Standing there, I realized I was looking at one of the clearest pictures of God’s grace I have ever experienced on a golf course.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25).
God isn’t saying His memory fails. He is saying He chooses not to hold our forgiven sins against us any longer.
When I replaced a bogey with a birdie, I never thought about the bogey again. I was simply grateful it no longer counted.
Yet how often do we keep replaying mistakes that God has already forgiven? We revisit old failures, regrets, and shame as though they’re still written on our scorecards. Meanwhile, God has already blotted them out.
Corrie ten Boom once said, “God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign: ‘No Fishing.’”
The bogey happened. The mistake was real. But it was no longer the score that counted.
The same is true for every believer in Christ. Our failures are real, but because of Christ’s redeeming work, they no longer define us.
When shame reminds you of yesterday’s score, remember God’s. The bogey is gone—not because it never happened, but because it was redeemed.
Prayer: Father, help me trust that what You have forgiven is gone, and please give me gratitude for unfailing grace. Amen.