If Scottie Scheffler Believes in God, than So Can I

Scottie Scheffler won the Masters a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about him, athleticism, flow, and faith since then. Scottie is a God-loving man (I sort of refuse to use the  expression “God fearing”) and he makes golf look effortless. He plays the game as if he knows he’s not really the one playing, that life and everything else in it, including golf, is God’s game, and he’s just the conduit for the ball.

I can’t actually speak for Scottie, but I admire his athleticism and have very fond memories of being an athlete. I loved operating in a state where it was just me and the ball, no interruptions. It sounds so silly to watch a man play golf and think, Well, jeez, if Scottie’s allowed to have faith, then so am I.

It may make me sound like a simpleton, but that was one of the things I came away from the Masters with. It’s funny how once you start to believe in Good, you start to seeing it everywhere and it starts happening to you all the time. Self-fulfilling prophecy? The Hand of God? Just a change of perspective? Who cares if it’s working, right?

It’s also interesting how the people operating with distinct focus on and certainty about their goals often seem to achieve them. There is something about drive and blind faith that just works, but I think there is a distinction between the two. Goals are achievable with or without faith in Good (or God, call it whatever you need to call it to get there, folks), no question. Left to drive alone, a goal is still achievable, but it may be a longer slog full of doubt and pure determination. With faith, the same work seems almost effortless, and I may not ever be able to discern if that’s because God is actually helping or if it just seems easier to do the same work if we believe in Good as we go along.

I say this mostly for my own benefit. I am thinking out loud about my own slog through life and how tiring it has been doing all that work (and having all that fun) without any faith. Over the past two years, I’ve made a concerted effort to open the door to having faith in Good, and this is a catalog of a more recent, distinct shift, a decided commitment to just believe in Good (or God) no matter what.

I don’t know why Scottie Scheffler helped me along the way. The retired jock in me appreciates his effortless game. We do the same thing with Nike, right? If LeBron James believes in Nike, then so can I. That’s hilarious.