I’m one of those guys who plays occasional golf.  What that means is that when I do play, I hit a lot of bad shots.  I comfort myself knowing that even the pros hit bad shots from time to time.  There are different kinds of bad shots.  Sometimes you just top the ball and it rolls weakly down the fairway.  Sometimes you hit the ground before you hit the ball and it pops up feebly while you look around to see if anyone was watching. 

The truly bad shots are the ones that fly deep into the rough.  In West Texas, that means that you are hunting a small white sphere in a forest of mesquite trees and careless weeds dotted with an occasional rattle snake.  If you can find the ball and if you can even swing a club, you have to make a decision.  Do you accept the fact that you hit a bad shot and simply try to hit back onto the fairway, or do you decide to try to hit a miracle shot up next to the green, deceiving yourself into believing that you might still get a par or a bogey?

In other words, do I accept the penalty that I earned with a bad shot into the rough or do I try to deny my error, avoid the penalty, and go for it. Of course, most of us go for the miracle shot, in which case, we usually hit a mesquite and bounce into a worse place than we were originally. Then the pressure is really on to hit another even more miraculous shot because the strokes are adding up.  I might even be tempted to cheat just a little.  If I had simply acknowledged my error and shot back onto the fairway, I would have probably ended up with a bogey or double bogey (two over par.)  If I try to beat the penalty, I will likely end up with a triple or quadruple bogey or even a lost ball. 

I find that we do that a lot in life.  We make mistakes. We sin. We fail.  Then, instead of acknowledging our mistakes or sins, we try to deny them or cover up what we have done with denial, lies, rationalizations, or blame.  Then the Law of Sowing and Reaping (Gal.6:7) kicks in.  If I sow to the flesh (lie, excuse, blame others), I will reap disaster.  If I sow to the Spirit, I will reap life.  The flesh (and the devil) prompt us to deny and cover our sins while the Spirit prompts us to confess and receive forgiveness.  When there are consequences, God will walk with us through those difficulties.

I’m reading through the life of David again.  As I read, I notice once again that King Saul caved to the flesh on numerous occasions. In 1 Samuel 15, God commanded Saul to attack the Amalekites and totally destroy them including the animals (There is a long history to that which I will leave for your research).  Saul attacked the Amalekites as commanded, but left King Agag alive and took the best of the sheep and the cattle.

The text says, “Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, ‘Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.’ When Samuel reached him, Saul said, ‘The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.’  But Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?’ Saul answered, ‘The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.’  ‘Stop!’ Samuel said to Saul. ‘Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’ ‘Tell me,’ Saul replied.

Samuel said, ‘The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’  Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?’ ‘But I did obey the Lord,’ Saul said. ‘I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.’

But Samuel replied: ‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king’ (1 Sam. 15:12-23).

It is amazing that Saul continued to justify his failure to do everything the Lord had commanded. Later in the chapter, he blamed his soldiers for sparing Agag and the best of the animals and then asked Samuel to go with him to honor him before the people.  The rest of Saul’s reign as King was marred by the same rationalizations, blame towards others, and an attempt to justify whatever he did, although it was clearly sin.

If he had acknowledged his weakness, his fear, and his sin and repented before God, things could have been very different. Remember that David himself slipped into extreme sin through adultery and murder, but God did not reject or forsake him.  His confession and repentance in Psalm 51 demonstrates the difference between David and Saul.  David did not deny his sin.  He blamed no one else. He was overwhelmed with his own sense of unworthiness, instead of building monuments to himself. Ultimately, he leaned on the mercy of God and, although there were hard consequences in the natural realm for his actions, he was reconciled to God and God walked with him through those consequences.  In the end, he was still known as a man after God’s own heart. 

So, the next time you shank a shot into the rough of life, I encourage you to acknowledge the mistake, lay it before the Lord, and receive the consequence without trying to escape it, cover it up, lie about it, excuse it, cheat, or even blame someone else for your predicament. Otherwise, you may find yourself in deeper weeds and lose much more in the long run than you would have if you had simply back in to the fairway.