Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22, ESV)
“Lost my focus,” said legendary golf instructor Jim Flick many years ago in an ad for some product I can’t remember. But somehow, I’ve never forgotten Jim turning to the camera and delivering that line.
I knew Jim Flick a little, meeting him at Desert Mountain Golf Club to discuss a business opportunity. In the process, I took a couple of lessons from him, met his wife, and had dinner with them both. I was a big fan.
I never met Arnold Palmer, but I was a dues-paying member of his army. So, I was delighted when, in a “White Elephant” gift exchange at one of our Links Fellowships this Christmas, I received a little book of stories by my earliest golf hero.
One of those is titled Focus, and I read it hoping I’d learn how to focus better. Instead, I read Arnie giving his opinion about why he didn’t win more majors: he lost his focus.
This book of stories was published the year Mr. Palmer died, and this story had the feel of honest reflection.
He didn’t lose his focus completely, he wrote, just a very small part of it.
But he also said that he would not change how he interacted with the fans, the sponsors, and the tournament organizers. All of that was more important to him than more majors.
Maybe Arnie didn’t lose his focus; maybe he applied it even more to the right thing. And that is the secret of focus for us all: paying attention to the right thing.
The verse above is the beginning of the denouement for King Saul. The prophet Samuel is delivering the word of God to him, and what he began with in the verse above he finished with this:
For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
It is as simple as that: pay attention to God or reject God. Either way, God will respond appropriately. Jesus repeated this principle many times in his ministry: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
When you play golf, pay attention to the right thing. Sometimes that thing is your partners; sometimes it is your score. But in living your life, always give attention to God’s word. No matter what the world says.