The Bungee Cord 9-12-22

Hello,

My son from New York was visiting me this weekend, and of course his wife and my grandson came along! Saturday we decided to play some golf. Neither one of us are tremendous golfers, actually we are both accomplished hackers. It was a slow round. At the tenth hole a guy who was playing alone caught up to us and joined us for the back nine. He was a far more accomplished player and took the game rather seriously. Unfortunately for him, I think the lower level of my son’s and my play affected his concentration and his game suffered. He was gracious about it, though.

My son has played less than 10 times in his life, so you can imagine the patience it took for our acquired partner to plod along the course with us. I am good enough to keep the ball in play, but not so my son. Drives sliced a fairway or two to the right, balls lost in the trees and tall grass. Fortunately, or unfortunately, despite my sons erratic play, we kept on pace with the slow play of the people in front of us.

Finally, we came to the 17th hole, and I suspect our newfound golfing buddy was quite ready to have this round finished. The 17th hole is a long par four with a slight dogleg right, trees lining the left side of the fairway, a creek running along the right side, and the same creek running through the fairway about 50 yards from the green. My son popped his drive up into the creek on the right. I showed my golfing prowess and drove my ball right down the middle about 200 yards (a good distance for me). And our friend whose concentration must have been used up cranked his drive much further than mine, but lost into the trees on the left. Feeling pretty good about my performance on my drive, I confidently took out my 9 iron to lay up in front of the creek having discovered far too many times that my game is not consistent enough to carry the creek. Wouldn’t you know, that my confidence got the best of me, and I peeked from my ball and toed it into the creek on the right side of the fairway.

When I approached the creek, I could not find my ball, but there was an orange ball lying in the middle of the creek, and being a cheap golfer, I figured that I might as well retrieve this orange ball. So, I pulled out my sand wedge, planning to scoop the ball up as I had so often done. It was a steep slope down to the water, but there was a small ledge just above water level that I figured would get me close enough to scoop up the ball. Quickly I discovered that my judgment was severely in error, because as I stepped on the ledge and put my club in the water that was much deeper than I had expected, the ground began to give way under my foot and I was heading head first into the water in slow motion. Fortunately, I was able to stab my sand wedge into the creek bottom which turned out to be as deep as the shaft of the club, and only the top of the hat that I was wearing got wet. But being in the inverted position that I was, and teetering precariously on my golf club, I could not move. My head inches above the water, my feet sticking out vertically from the steeply sloped Creekside. Helpless. A fool of my own making.

Soon, I heard some hilarious laughing coming from the side of the creek. It was my son who was enjoying the sight of his father’s predicament, and a belly rumble coming from our serious, patience worn friend..

“I can’t move!” I said, giggling myself, and thankful that I was not golfing by myself with I often do.

Soon I felt a set of hands grab my left ankle and another set of hands grabbing my right, and with a strong yank I was pulled, feet first, out of the creek. We all laughed at my foolishness all brought about by my penny pinching nature to retrieve a ball whose initial owner was far wiser than I.

Thankful to been saved from dunking myself in that creek, I dopped another ball (a ball that I had previously found in the deep grass), and amid my laughter hit another nine iron onto the green. As the three of us picked up our bags of clubs, our newfound never smiling friend said with a chuckle of delight, “That is a sight that I will never forget!”

It all made me consider what God says when God pulls us out of the foolish predicaments that we bring upon ourselves. I bet God, after grabbing his hands around our ankles, finds himself chuckling in comic delight, “That is a sight that I will never forget!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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