“Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. (Matthew 21:31, NIV)
Perhaps you were intrigued this week by the story of Blayne Barber, who will not qualify for his PGA Tour card next season. That’s because Barber disqualified himself.
If you missed the story, it goes like this: Barber, who played his college golf at Auburn University, went through the first stage of the Tour’s Qualifying School with ease, moving on by five shots. But during the event, he played a shot from a bunker, where he thought his club slightly moved a leaf. His brother, who was caddying for him, said the leaf did not move. Barber was sure that it had, so he assessed a one-shot penalty on himself and signed his card for that score.
Sometime later Barber, who was a Walker Cup team member in 2011, was talking to one of his college teammates about the scenario, when his teammate corrected him. Barber’s infraction requires a two-shot penalty.
And now the wrestling began. “I continued to pray about it and think about it,” Barber told Golfweek, “and I just did not have any peace about it. I knew I needed to do the right thing.” So six days after the completion of the stage, Barber called the Tour, and in minutes he was out. No PGA Tour card, no Web.com Tour card. 2103 will be a year of Monday qualifiers for Barber.
Jesus told a simple parable about two brothers. The first told his father that he would not help out in the vineyard, yet later he returned and did the work. The second said he would do his father’s bidding, but did not. Jesus’ hearers recognized that the son who had done the right thing was the one who had come to do the work, even though he was slow to come around.
Sometimes our obedience to God is a worked-out thing. We don’t come right away, wholehearted, or with a willing spirit. But we come. And God receives us. He moves us, inch by inch, that much closer to his own holiness.
We are right to celebrate those who immediately “drop their nets” to follow Jesus. But we are right as well to party with the prodigal and the procrastinator!
—
Jeff Hopper
November 9, 2012
Copyright 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.