Golf and Repentance

I can hit a golf ball 200 yards. Unfortunately, it ends up where no man has ever gone before; deep into chigger infested grass, or embedded in the undergrowth of some unexplored wilderness forest. Lately my golf ball has become a water seeking missile. 
I engaged the services of a golf pro to help me keep the ball in the fairway. He asked me to hit a ball so he could see what I was doing wrong. The first ball I hit arced high into the air and plunked into the lake just to the right of the fairway. “You’re way too stiff.” the pro said, “You gotta relax – if you wiggle a little before you swing it will relax you.”

So I wiggled a little. I hit the ball; a beautiful soaring shot – right into the lake. Now, I was angry. I grabbed another ball, a mulligan. I teed it up, did the little wiggle thing and hit the ball. Again, it went into the lake.

I reasoned, “if aiming at the fairway causes my ball to slice into the lake, surely if I aim at the nice homes on the opposite side of the lake, the ball will land in the fairway. I teed up. I did the little wiggle. I hit that ball as hard as I could. It hit the inside of my club, then the inside of my heel, and scooted across the grass into the lake.

The golf pro said, “Have you tried tennis?”

Someone once defined insanity as “continuing to do the same thing expecting a different result.” I live out that definition every time I step on the golf course. The Bible has a cure for that kind of insanity; it’s called repentance. It means “to change direction.” It works for living out our faith as well as for moving forward in all aspects of life. There are three very difficult steps to repentance:

• Admit you are doing something wrong!
• Do what it takes to discover what it is!
• Stop doing it!

I hired a pro to help me stop the insanity in my golf game. In my walk of faith I am helpless to change without the power of my creator BUT, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Phil 4:13

Why are the steps to sanity/repentance so difficult?
Do you have any golf balls you can spare?

Addendum: I told my pro that I was not an athlete. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, anyone who can swing like you and not fall down is an athlete.”