Grip

One of my presents for my birthday this year was golf lessons. I think my children took pity on me having listened too many times of my failings on the golf course! Truth is I know I’ve need some lessons for a while. I’d like to blame lockdown for my worsening golf, and whilst there may well be some truth to the belief that not playing at all for so long affected my swing, it’s certainly not the whole truth. Golf is a complex game. No, really it is. And someone once said the me: “Ian, if you want to get better at golf, you have to play three times a week!” I’ve never achieved that. And, post lockdowns, my golf was getting worse. The swing I’d tried so hard to perfect, was letting me down. I couldn’t figure it out. Shots I was once confident to make, I was missing. So…lessons. I’ve had one lesson. And changed one thing: my grip. John, my golf pro. took at look at my swing and simply said: “We just need to change that grip Ian. We need to make it a stronger grip.” To the uninitiated, that’s not a way of telling me to tighten my grip on the club. It’s much more technical than that. I won’t bore you with the mechanics, but, it works! For the first time in ages, I’ve hit the ball long and straight. Not every time. But it’s there. And with practice and patience and perseverance, I’ll be able to groove the new swing until it’s natural. At the moment it’s hard work. I have to check my grip on every shot. I’m learning a new swing. It feels different. And I don’t always get it right. But I can feel it when I do. And, there’s a parallel process going on in me that reminds me of changing my golf swing. There are some things about faith that I’ve held dear for a long time. I’m not sure if anyone told me them or taught me them, but I’ve held them dear for many, many years. But, I’ve been struggling with them. And they’ve become more uncomfortable as I’ve read and thought and reflected and wrestled. I’ve slowly realised that they don’t make sense to me anymore. And, harder than that, they don’t make sense of God anymore. However hard I try to make them so. Mostly, it’s come about because I’ve reflected and thought deeply about some of the things I’ve preached, about which I say I am convinced. It’s forced me to ask myself the question: “If I am convinced of that which I preach, what does that say about who God is? And what I really believe?” I haven’t gone looking for different ways of understanding these things, but as I’ve read and listened, I’ve found better ways of understanding them. And believe me, it’s a difficult and painful process. Like my golf swing, I’m still struggling and I don’t have it all sorted. But I’m in a much better place. With a much stronger grip (pun intended) on some really important parts of my faith. I didn’t want golf lessons because it meant I had to admit I needed help. But I’m really glad I’ve got them. I didn’t go out to wrestle with my faith, but I found myself in the middle of the wrestling, wondering where it would take me. To which the answer is, I’m not entirely sure. But I’m in a better place than I was. The journey is painful. And worth it. Because I’m discovering God is better than I thought and had believed for so long. Perhaps, sometimes, there comes a time when to wrestle with our faith, though slow and painful, is the best things we can do. I think so!