Scottie's Secret
The world's best golfer isn't saying his vocation is meaningless. He's sharing a powerful (and ancient) lesson on how to order our loves
By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the above clip. If not, it’s the world’s greatest golfer, Scottie Scheffler, musing on the emptiness felt at the highest levels of sporting success. You work your whole life for something—like winning the Masters, the U.S. Open, etc—and then you enjoy it for a few moments, hours perhaps, and then it’s on to the next goal.
Funny enough, five days after making those comments, Scheffler went out and dominated the British Open. All week long, sportswriters and commentators and everyday people mused about the meaning of Schefler’s words. Is he saying he’s bored? Is he in some kind of mid-life crisis? Is this his REAL secret weapon?
Many Christian observers remarked that his honest words would fit nicely alongside a sermon on Ecclesiastes. Perhaps.
Yes, he is reminding us that true happiness cannot be found in success, money, or the respect of your peers. This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying. I've been to the mountaintop, and it’s lonely up here.
But what Scottie was saying is something more than that, something ancient and profound. It’s what C.S. Lewis, borrowing from Augustine, borrowing from Jesus, says about ordering our loves.
Here is what Jesus says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:46)”
Jesus, here isn’t saying you should hate your family. This would be in direct violation of the law, which calls us to honor and care for our families. “Honor your father and Mother” in the OT. “If you don’t provide for your families, you are worse than an unbeliever” in the NT.
What Jesus is saying is this: unless you see God as the ultimate object of worship, you cannot and will not properly love your brothers, your sisters, your family, your job, your hobbies, your very life. We know this to be true. A husband who worships his wife demands of her a kind of soul satisfaction that only comes from God. A husband like this is constantly disappointed in his wife, because he expects her to be what only God can be. Parents who make their kids their everything. This sounds great until it’s practiced in real life. Parents who live vicariously through their kids, who become avatars of their own failed dreams. They shelter and hover and helicopter and then end up being angry with their kids for letting them down. A career person who makes his job his ultimate thing ends up bitter at the way the job took so much from him and didn’t satisfy.
In his book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis quoted an old proverb arguing that any “love,” taken to an extreme, becomes evil: “Love becomes a demon when it becomes a god.” Such love ceases to be love. Listen to Augustine
Living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally.[1]
I’ve found this to be true in my own life. I’m able to enjoy the good gifts from God when I don’t worship them. I love my wife best when I don’t expect her to be what she was never created to be. I am a better dad when I am not looking for my children to fulfill my dreams. My career and ministry—doing things I absolutely love—become frustrating and fruitless when I expect that each new success will finally satisfy.
Tim Keller made this a centerpiece of his preaching, situated as he was in the heart of perhaps America’s most competitive financial sector. The solution to our temptation toward idolatry isn’t to think in terms of binaries, but to think in terms of order. Here’s Keller:
“Don’t love anything less; instead learn to love God more, and you will love other things with far more satisfaction. You won’t overprotect them; you won’t over expect things from them. You won’t be constantly furious with them for not being what you hoped. Don’t stifle passionate love for anything; rather, redirect your greatest love toward God by loving him with your whole heart and loving him for himself, and not just for what he can give you. Then, and only then, does the contentment start to come.”[1]
This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes is really saying. “Under the sun" these pursuits and gifts have no meaning and satisfaction. But if there is something . . . or rather Someone above the sun, then all these lesser things can be enjoyed.
This is what Scottie Schefler is saying. He enjoys his golf success because he isn’t looking to it for ultimate meaning. Scottie, a Christian, finds that in God.
Some updates:
My podcast took a summer hiatus but we will be back soon with some more conversations. Stay tuned.
My book, In Defense of Christian Patriotism, will be released September 30th. It’s still early, but you can pre-order here. I do talk Augustine and Lewis and Keller in helping us understand how we can love God first and also love our country well.
[1] Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical (Penguin, 2016), 92.
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine (Aeterna Press, 1958), I, 27.