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Put on the whole armor of God.
-- Ephesians 6:11

Just as the United States Golf Association says, "I really, really, really love golf." It's fun, good exercise without a cart, an unconquerable adventure, and cheaper than a shrink.

That's why one of us confessed: "My wife said it's her or golf. Boy, am I going to miss my wife."

I'm kidding.

But there are some things that are really starting to bother me. The prize money on the three big tours is increasingly obscene and already unconscionable. And it's getting really, really, really expensive. The costs of equipment and play are escalating quicker than the price of a back-up quarterback in the NFL.

However, I'm not too concerned about the costs. They'll come down as the game's popularity mimics the growth and decline graphs of tennis, racketball, jogging, and so on. Indeed, I feel a little sorry for course owners, pro shops, manufacturers, and retailers whose price-gouging makes divorce lawyers blush. What goes around comes around and it's coming around for the golf industry right now according to the latest stock reports.

But if I could ever find a putter allergic to three-putt greens, I'd pay almost as much as Nevillewood's pro shop charges. "You never stop searching for the perfect putter," Nick Price noted just before the 1998 PGA Championship, "but this one has worked really well."

Yeah, right!

They all work for a while.

Bob Dehls, my favorite clubmaker and an elder at Center, often says, "Every club has a 45-day guarantee. After 45 days, you're looking for a new one." He also likes to say, "The toughest yardage in golf is between the ears." Or as Craig Stadler lamented, "Why am I using a new putter? Because the old one didn't float too well."

"The constant undying hope for improvement," Bernard Darwin concluded, "makes golf so exquisitely worth playing."

The passion for improvement drives people to all corners of the earth or at least another catalogue for that "this-is-my-last" driver or putter or wedge or glove or racket or rod or cue or bow or computer or whatever.

Terry Schwarzbach, a golfing buddy who knows even more about buying those last clubs than I do, rationalizes, "Buying new equipment is half the fun."

That's true, except for me when my wife confronts me with the Discover Card bill.

Theoretically and really, it's the pursuit of something better.

And it's as deluding as Monty Python's search for the Holy Grail.

It's the same with everything else.

One of my favorite commercials has a teenager looking into her closet which is packed tightly with clothes. She turns around in panic and screams, "Mom, school starts next week and I've got nothing to wear!"

It's the Imelda Marcos syndrome and we've all got it.

How many clubs or rackets or tools or computers or shoes or suits or necklaces or rings or belts or briefcases or purses or dolls or toys or trains or video games or ... (It's a long list!) ... do we need?

One of the Rockefellers liked to say: "How much is enough? Just a little bit more than I have!"

We'll save simplifying our lifestyles for another book or when Tony Campolo comes back to town.

Actually, we always save that discussion for another time that never comes.

But whether it's golf or some other therapeutic distraction, we're always looking for better equipment.

And by God's grace or the dark side depending upon your perspective, there's always somebody hawking that cure-all for what keeps us from nirvana.

Harvey Penick described how it goes (And If You Play Golf, You're My Friend, 1993):

For most everyone, the driver is the most difficult club in the bag ... When a player finds a driver he falls in love with, he keeps it forever -- or at least until he falls out of love and divorces the club and sends it to live with eight or ten other drivers in the closet or the trunk of the car ...

I remember how in about 1962 a manufacturer came out with a new driver that had some kind of slot in the head that supposedly increased distance. One of my Texas boys ... told me he wanted to buy the new driver ... There was nothing wrong with Billy's old driver, and he was good with it. Like all golfers, Billy was being gullible to the lure of advertising.

Theodore Jorgensen, a retired physics professor at the University of Nebraska, greeted another debut of better golf equipment this way: "The average golfer can improve his game quicker by improving his swing, rather than by trying to find equipment that works better."

Or as the seriously seasoned will tell you, "You can buy the best equipment but it won't make any difference until you learn how to play the game."

My dad often says: "It's not the equipment. It's the player. All clubs work if you know what you're doing. It's just a matter of aesthetics -- looking down and liking what you see."

But then I gave him a Biggest Big Bertha for Father's Day.

Now he agrees with those who insist technological advances are making the game easier.

That's what Michael Murphy's Adam understood in Golf in the Kingdom:

"Golf recapitulates evolution," he said in a melodious voice, "it is a microcosm of the world, a projection of all our hopes and fears." I cannot remember all the phrases, but his words were an ecstatic hymn to golf ... He told about the technological changes in the game and how they brought new powers and awareness into play for those who pursued it with a passion. With its improved clubs and balls and courses, golf reflected man's ever-increasing complexity. It was becoming a better vehicle for training the higher capacities. And so it was becoming the yoga of the supermind, the ultimate discipline for transcendence.

Huh?

Murphy's metaphysics are a little far out. But, essentially, the message is everything evolves. And while cynics concentrate on the negatives of societal evolution, most of us see things getting better and better and better.

Foot. Horse. Automobile. Airplane.

Rock. Pencil. Typewriter. Computer.

Home remedy. Generalist. Specialist. Washington Hospital.

Ice. Fan. Air conditioning.

While it may come as a shock to fundamentalists, God can even work through evolution to bless us.

Everybody wants to get better at what she or he does at work and recreation. And God makes that possible by the progressive evolution of equipment.

A fellow said to a friend, "I got some new golf clubs for my wife." His friend remarked, "That's great! I wish I could make a trade like that."

Again, I'm just kidding.

But it's a tough game and it makes sense to play with the best equipment.

History has taught there are always new and improved ways of doing things.

If you think that's hooey or somehow alien to our ethic, you need to take another long look at our Lord's parable of the wineskins (see Matthew 9:17).

Life is tough too.

You know that.

There's no need to catalogue the crises.

You know them.

And many of you have already experienced more than your share of them.

We can be thankful that our Lord has provided the equipment to live triumphantly amid the meanness, madness, and misery of life in the modern world.

So many psalms remind us that God is our sustaining source of strength, stability, and sanity. I especially like these lines from Psalm 144: "Blessed be the Lord, my rock ... and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge ... Happy are the people whose God is the Lord."

Or as we say, "Jesus saves."

Paul was more specific. He listed the equipment provided by God as "the full armor of God" (see Ephesians 6:10-20):
1. The Belt of Truth -- Jesus!
2. The Breastplate of Righteousness -- A holy life in Jesus!
3. Shoes of Peace -- Walking the talk of Jesus!
4. The Shield of Faith -- Assurance of salvation through Jesus!
5. The Helmet of Salvation -- Jesus!
6. The Sword of the Spirit -- The Bible which tells the truth of Jesus!

Simply, Jesus!

But listen very carefully.

The equipment won't fit until we get to know the manufacturer.

Putting it directly, Jesus doesn't make any difference in our lives until he is at the center or heart of our lives.

I think of what Roberto De Vicenzo said to Seve Ballesteros just before he won the 1979 British Open: "You have the hands, now play with your heart."

The equipment only becomes effective after it is embraced by the heart, soul, mind, and body.

Only then are we equipped to play.

And only after we invite Jesus into our hearts as Lord and Savior are we equipped for this life and the next.

Nancy Meider comes to mind.

The temple of her soul -- her physical body -- is dying of cancer but her spirit survives in calm and certain expectation of the next chapter of her never-ending story as a child of God because she has Jesus in her heart as Lord and Savior.

Her faith in Jesus has so equipped her for eternal victory over an existential disease that she inspires confidence and peace and joy in all who visit her.

I've often thought of "Footprints" after visiting Nancy. It's familiar to most of us:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him, and the other belonging to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You, You'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

Chances are you've heard that many times.

But like the old gospel song goes, "For those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest."

It's refreshing to be reminded God is with us at all times.

My friend Thom Hickling just sent me an update which he calls "A Variation on Footprints":

Now imagine you and the Lord Jesus walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord's footprints go along steadily and consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your prints are disorganized, a stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures and returns. For much of the way, it seems to go like this.

But gradually, your footprints come more in line with the Lord's soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends.

This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens. Your footprints that were etched in the sand next to the Master's are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His larger footprints is the small "sand-print," safely enclosed. You and Jesus are becoming one. This goes on for many miles.

But you notice another change. The footprint inside the larger footprint seems to grow larger. Eventually, it disappears altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one. Again, this goes on for a long time.

But then something awful happens. The second set of footprints is back. And this time, it seems even worse. Zigzags all over the place. They stop. They start. Deep gashes in the sand. A veritable mess of prints. You're amazed and shocked. But this is the end of your dream.

Now you speak: "Lord, I understand the first scene with the zigzags and fits and starts and so on. I was a new Christian, just learning. But you walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with you."

"That is correct."

"Yes, and when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps. I followed You very closely."

"Very good. You understand everything so far."

"Then the smaller footprints grew and eventually filled in with Yours. I suppose that I was actually growing so much that I was becoming like You in every way."

"Precisely."

"But this is my question. Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints went back to two, and this time it was worse than the first."

The Lord smiles, then laughs. He says, "You didn't know? That was when we danced!"

Nancy's soul dances even as her body passes.

That's what happens when you're equipped.

But remember, nothing fits until our Lord is at the center or heart of our lives.

By the way, everybody plays.

So it makes sense to employ the best equipment.

Jesus!