Last week I was invited to be the after dinner speaker at a Christian Golf Society day. I was also invited to join them for a round of golf before the meal… the less said about that the better! Ahem.

After dinner I shared a few illusions with the golfers (including a few golf-related illusions) and showed them this very special golf ball.

This is the first (and so far only) golf ball to have started with me on the first tee of a round of golf, be used for the entire round of golf and finish by landing in the cup on the 18th green. It’s a very special golf ball.

Golf balls are cleverly designed for one main purpose. They are designed to travel from tee to fairway to green to cup. They have dimples on them to aid flight. The dimples are like the wings of a golf ball and (surprisingly perhaps) a dimpled golf ball will travel higher and further than a smooth one. It’s something to do with air pressure.

They also have a core inside the hard exterior. This core is like the engine. When (if) the club face connects with the ball the inner core is compressed and then expands to hurl itself off the club and travel faster and further than a solid ball would.

It’s very clever and different balls have different dimple arrangements and different cores in order to be easier to control or travel further.

However they all have the same purpose – to travel from tee to fairway to green to cup.

I have retired my special golf ball from active duty because I can’t bear the thought that it might get lost because (this may surprise you) I often lose golf balls. When I am searching for my lost ball I often find other balls that have been lost by other golfers. When a ball gets lost it does not stop being a golf ball, but it stops fulfilling its purpose – to travel from tee to fairway to green to cup.

Humans are like golf balls in that we also have been created for a purpose. That purpose is to know God. But like golf balls we too can get lost: lost because our attitudes, actions, thoughts and words take us from the ‘straight and narrow’. It doesn’t stop us from being human, but we’re not fulfilling our purpose because these things separate us from God.

The message of Jesus is that we don’t have to stay lost. He said that he came to find those who were lost and there’s a party thrown in heaven when that happens – even more than if a golfer finds a special ball he had lost.

Be blessed, be a blessing