I have told you often that successful people master the art of doing the same little things over and over again. The most persistent challenge to success is boredom. Achievement can always be broken down into a few consistent steps and repeated. Finding those steps to victory or accomplishment is the most difficult of all. Most processes are refined over a long time; improvement normally comes from incremental changes and testing. It is to say the least a long boring process and needless to say, this simple fact accounts for the mediocrity of most people. Learning what is right and then doing it consistently seems simply in a phase but the most difficult to apply.

It is true that most of us will reject success if it means doing the same thing every time. Nothing teaches you this lesson like playing golf. The deception in golf is looking at a lawn over forty yards wide at times and being asked to hit a ball less than one and a half inches somewhere in that space. What can be easier? There is nothing in your experience which prepares you for the difficulty involved until you try for the first time. There are several specific steps involved in a perfect golf swing and it involves the entire body. Yet no matter how many times you play the game you have to fight every emotion to do something else. So many times a player will abandon the chance of doing well in order to just have an unrestricted swing at the ball.

The essence of what Christ does in our lives is overcoming this structural weakness. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. What exactly does that mean? Last night my grandson and I played ping pong with my Brother Paul and some friends. Modecai my grandson is the smartest kid in the world his age bar none. His weakness is he is as competitive as his mother. He is the kind of guy who will cry if cheating does not work in order to win. (Don’t tell him I said that.) And he talks smack too like his Dad. As you can tell by now the only really put together person around him is his Paw Paw Forde. I try at times to go easy on him, so I will often play him with my right hand which is my weaker hand. It’s something I love to do, let people beat me on my weaker hand, that way they feel good about themselves and I secretly feel better. Well I guess the cats out the bag now.

Anyway I was playing Modecai with my right hand when he started playing really well. Now just because you are trying sto help out the guy does not mean he will cut you some slack. So just like that I am five points down in front of everybody and he's trying run me off the table. Suddenly my pride got a little bruised and I forgot he was only seven; his lip will sometimes do that to you. So for a brief moment I decided to play him like a grown man, thinking to myself I better change hands before he embarrassed me in front of everybody. In that moment I learned a few things, a couple of which I will share with you here. Modecai is my grandson and I am supposed to teach him to play the game of ping pong and the game of life. For him to do better than me is the highest honor, so if he beats me I still win.

As I told you in my report on my other grandchild, ping pong like golf requires you to do some specific things in order to excel at it. The most important is keeping the ball on the table. When I realized I still win when Modecai becomes good enough to beat me I chose to keep playing with my right hand. The pressure to win and the ego subsided and I started to enjoy the game for his sake as well as for mine. That’s when my game went into orbit, you see when I play with my right hand I have to follow the steps to victory to the letter. I just keep it on the table. There are fewer temptations to spike the ball or become impatient or fancy. The weakness of my right hand makes me strong because it forces me to depend on external factors not my individual skill. I simple have to keep it on the table. It is what is meant by God’s strength being made perfect in our weakness.

Now as you probably guessed I reversed his lead and won the game. Now that felt really good so the next time I plan to win again. If that sounds like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, don’t sweat it. You see if he beats me too early we both lose!

“It’s just a thought!”

EF

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