What a Blessed Game!

I had the great pleasure of spending this past weekend at a Young Life camp in Northern Arizona with about 160 other gentlemen from the greater Phoenix area. It was our church's annual Men's Retreat, and it was the first time I had made up my mind to attend this event, even though I've been attending the church fairly regularly for the past three years.

I met a tremendous number of men who seemed to have life pretty well figured out over the weekend. We're talking about heads of very significant companies, guys who have been working all their lives, younger guys just starting out on their own walk in life - but dedicated to following the path God has planned for them, and a lot of guys who have very solid lives highlighted with loving wives, well behaved children, nice homes, fine cars and everything you could ever want in life.

Except golf. 

I am the first person to admit that I've been blessed by the game of golf. It's not that I'm a great player, or that I was brought up on a private country club with all the amenities any kid could ever want, or even that I got a college education paid for by playing the game. None of those are true. But what is true is that I've been given (or at least I created) a chance to play many of the finest golf courses and resorts in the world, sometimes in the company of some very good friends, often in the company of strangers (at least they were strangers for a hole or two), and sometimes completely by myself. Whichever way I got to play a course, I loved it!

I am by nature a fun-loving, free-spirited, outdoors type of person. I spent way too many years of my life working indoors in a corporate type setting, stifled by a suit and tie if not four walls. I longed to be outdoors doing just about anything rather than sitting behind a desk through most of those years, and I saw the same longing in many of the men I met over the weekend.

Virtually everyone who found out what I am able to do for my vocation had some sort of an envious comment or thought to share with me, especially when they found out I was able to travel throughout the western United States and south along the border states and Gulf of Mexico to Florida playing several hundred of the finest golf courses in America over a 13 month period last year and into this past spring (okay, sometimes my "job" really does seem more like a vacation than a vocation).

 It was amusing to me listening to men who have accumulated many, many times the financial resources I have, or men who are able to spend every day within the loving presence of their family, safe within their large homes, who rarely have to wonder where the next tank of gas or cell phone payment is going to come from who are envious of anything I have.

And then I thought about what I do have, and I realized just how blessed I truly have been.

Without going into too much detail (which would probably fascinate you, but might also frighten you), let's just say that I don't have much in the way the world typically measures wealth. Conversely, I am rich beyond your wildest imagination in terms of life experiences and memories, including the quantity and quality of the golf courses I've been able to enjoy. Some people think I've wasted my life away traveling to places few white men have ever gone, doing things few people have ever done, and for the past seven years, playing golf. But until the Alzheimer's kicks in, I've got my memories and experiences and intimate knowledge of beautiful places and wonderful people, and as was so clearly pointed out to me last weekend, I am a very lucky man.

Someday, I hope everyone can be so lucky!