For years, the headlines were all about Tiger Woods' triumphs. Now, it seems like they're all about Tiger's troubles. In his first tournaments since his sexual infidelities were exposed, he just wasn't the almost invincible golfer we knew before. Then last weekend he had to drop out of a tournament because of painful neck spasms. On Monday, his swing coach quit.
I was struck by Tiger's admission this week that the problems aren't just physical. He said, "There are a lot of things going on in my life. I'm just trying to get everything in a harmonious spot, and that's not easy to do." It's easy to throw stones at Tiger. What he needs is our prayers.
He said he was going to get back to practicing the religion he had strayed from. Sadly, religion lacks the one thing we need to pull our life out of a deadly tailspin - power. Every religion offers a path to change, but what's missing is the power to change. Even Christianity, as a religion, can be the path without the power.
I've always been amazed by the naked candor of one of the writers of the Bible. Most religious guys (and he was really religious) wouldn't publicly admit what Paul did. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...I have the desire to do good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:15, 18-19).
I know what he means. I'm ashamed of the times my spoiled selfishness has kept me from being the husband my wife has needed and deserved. I hate the pride and ego that too often rear their ugly head. I've been told, "Ron, you don't realize the power of your words." I don't...especially the power of my words to hurt sometimes. I'm all too aware of my dark side, and how hard it is "to get everything in a harmonious spot."
But I've found my hope in the same place Paul did. Like the folks who were dug out of their storm cellar this week after that Oklahoma tornado buried them, I need someone to rescue me. It's like Paul said: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me...?" (Romans 7:24). That means he's given up all hope of getting himself out of the death-trap of his own sin. He knew the path to change. He just didn't have the power to change.
But Jesus did, and He still does. Paul wrote: "Who will rescue me?...Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25). Christianity can tell you how you need to change, but it can't change you. Neither can any other religion. We need a rescuer, not a religion. There's only one who did what it took to confront and conquer the slave master of sin.
Jesus "...bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins" (1 Peter 2:24). It took Jesus dying on the cross in our place to absorb all the guilt of sin and to break its hold on the human heart. That's my personal Hope Story, and the story of millions of people around the world who have found in Jesus, and Jesus alone, the power to beat what's always beaten us. It is, in fact, resurrection power - the same power that enabled Jesus to blow away death by walking out of His grave that first Easter.
When He moves into a life, that power comes with Him, and it tames the tiger in our soul.