In the golfing world, yesterday may have been one
of the most exciting and long awaited days in the
sports history. "The Masters" golf tournament is
the most prestigious championships in all of golf,
but no more important than to the man that won it.
As he walked up the eightieth fairway, I couldn't
help but wonder what was going through his mind.
You see, Phil Mickelson was known as the best
golfer in the world who never won a major
championship. In forty-seven tries he placed in
the top ten eight times and three of them were
previously placing third in The Masters, yet he
never could win the big one. He developed a
reputation of choking in the last rounds never
able to finish on top of the leaderboard.
So yesterday, as he walked up to the green of the
eightieth hole tied for the lead and a twenty foot
putt to win the tournament, you could say he had
the weight of the golf world on his shoulders.
"Something was different today," he said in an
interview after the round, and you could see that
in his face as he walked up that long fairway. He
smiled as he relished that moment in what normally
would be a stress filled frown. "I just knew it
was my day." he said. Can you imagine the hunger,
the thirst for victory Phil had to have at that
moment, yet at the same time fighting the feelings
of fear and the haunting times of failure down
deep inside? But "this was my day," he said.
One of the last things Jesus said that most of us
look over was "I thirst". I think we would have
reacted just like the Roman soldiers did as they
raised a rag filled with water and vinegar to
Jesus' month. Did Jesus thirst for water for his
physical body or did he thirst for the father even
in his time of death? In his time of defeat with
the weight of the world on his shoulders I believe
the symbolism was Jesus was still hungry to serve.
He thirsted not for water as we see it, but for
the living water that his heavenly father could
only give.
All of us have had failures and we have all walked
down that lonely fairway of life not knowing if we
would win or lose. But what brought Phil Michelson
to that moment in time was not the many
tournaments that he won in the past, but those
that eluded him. Phil could have chosen this
weekend to just say here I go again, and dwell on
what could have been, yet he didn't, "today is my
day" he thought. It's not about last week's
tournament or yesterdays failures, but about this
shot in life we have right in front of us. You see
we can allow our failures in life and the weight
of the world to do us in or we can just say,
"Today is my day."
What are you doing today as you walk down your
fairway of life? Are you hungry for God's
blessings in your life? Or are you carrying the
weight of your past with you each and every shot.
In life as in the game of golf, it's not about
your last shot it's about forgetting it and
looking forward to the next. The question is, "Do
you thirst enough?"
Greg Ryan is a best selling author of the Changing from the INSIDE OUT series. A powerful five step plan to better your life, get healthier, and have more energy! For FREE mini Course click here! http://www.resolutions.bz