Unexpected Golf

Every year my wife and I combine our collective genius to host our annual "Turkey Hunt" for our students and leaders. The Turkey Hunt is an "amazing race style" scavenger hunt where students (with adult drivers) are broken into teams, hunt for clues and complete various tasks all in an effort to capture the elusive, "Turkey". This year's event was a huge success (minus the anticipated complaints from adults...because they lost).

The event included stops at the local YMCA, pizza shops, local grocery stores, malls, skating rinks and a few other local establishments. One of my favorite locations for this year's event was a small Par 3 golf course with a driving range. I say favorite because I love playing golf (not good at all) and because our contact at the golf course was super excited to work with us.

A few weeks prior to the event I spent several hours scoping out locations and setting up tasks at the various locations. As I drove onto the golf course I was hoping for a, "quick in, quick out" connection. I parked, jumped out, ran in, made my pitch and to my relief, the guy was super exicted to work with us. I shook his hand, said I'd be in touch with more detials and then headed back to my car.

To my chagrin my car wasn't in agreement with my "quick in, quick out" plan. The car was completely dead. Nothing. Silence. No love. Zip. Tapped out. Like any man, I jumped out, opened the hood and stared blankly. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for, maybe an unplugged cord labeled, "Never unplug". Finding no such luck, I was quickly approached by my new, ever so eager friend in his "company car" (golf cart). Assuming it was just a dead battery he offered to provide a jump. No luck. Still nothing. Sensing that my afternoon was falling apart I made the dreaded phone call to AAA. While AAA should feel like a life saver in this type of situation, the waiting is endless. I found myself stuck, waiting for someone to show up at some point in the next 2 hours. Needless to say, my Turkey Hunt planning had come to a screeching halt.

As I settled in for my undisclosed wait time, I was suddenly struck by a marvelous realization, my golf clubs were in my trunk. A light had suddenly appeared in the midst of my darkness. I had golf clubs and I was stranded AT a golf course. As I made for my trunk to retrieve my clubs, planning to simply visit the putting green, my new friend said the most glorious words ever uttered to a stranded man at a golf course, "Just grab a cart and head out, play 9 on the house." 

As I hacked my way through hole #4 I was reminded of God's favor even in the midst of fouled up days. I spent much of my free 9 holes regretting shots but also thanking God for His goodness. 

I began to wonder how often in life I focus all of my energies on accomplishing my plans for a particular day. I have my task list, my agenda, my goals. While I don't imagine that God's grand plan is for me to play free golf everyday, I do know that He desires that I slow down long enough to listen and respond to His plans for my day. 

Jeremiah 33:3 says, "‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’" I recently heard someone say that, "We don't know what we don't know, because we don't know what we don't know". Crazy right? But it makes sense. We shuffle through our days confident that we know what we're supposed to do and when we're supposed to do it but what if we're all wrong. What if we're not supposed to do any of that? What if we're completely missing what God has for us simply because we've never slowed and down and listened. 

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