I've never been one to really follow golf, but this yahoo blog post caught my eye.
JP Hayes is a professional golfer who basically disqualified himself from a year of exempt status for the entire 2009 PGA season because he was honest enough to admit that he mistakenly broke a few rules regarding ball use. What is crazy and a bit unnerving is that he could have easily gotten away with it and if no one raised a big stink about it, people may not have cared. Hayes is a golfer who has already pulled in $7 million of career income and so as the blogger writes, "Knowing you're taking yourself out of the running for a year of career stability and wealth takes some serious situational ethics." In an age where professional athletes are so vilified for being selfish, egotistical cheaters, an athlete who stands up for the integrity of his sport, but more importantly, his personal integrity is quite refreshing. It's gotta be that this guy lives for something more important than money and comfort because if that was his top priority, my guess is that he would have taken a chance just to let things "slide" or else just blame his caddy, which he didn't.
How often do we let things "slide" in our personal life? Things that we know are "technically wrong," but no one would really care about, seem to be the toughest things to work out (read: illegal downloading, cheating, speeding??). I'm not saying these are mortal sins or anything (I couldn't even if I wanted to), but it makes me wonder how much clearer we would be able to hear Jesus speaking to us without all this rationalization, get-ahead attitude junk muddying up the waters.
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2 comments:
hm...was thinking more about this. not sure if i would have the balls to do what he did. ;)
Well, Pat, if you/JP Hayes didn't have the balls, it would not have been a problem in the first place.
All kidding aside, perhaps there's a lesson in that, like how God doesn't give you more than you can handle.
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