I’d be remiss if I didn’t share the story of the world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, a believer from Texas, who ranks golf #3 in his life after God and family. Scotty just won The Open (it’s name is not “The British Open”) last Sunday. Before the tournament started, Scotty gave an interview that caught the attention of people around the world.

A lot of sportswriters picked up on it including our local Paul Klee of the Colorado Springs Gazette. His summary was:

From Jokic to Scheffler to Broncos, the world’s top athletes are prioritizing life. – Paul Klee, July 22, 2025

Paul’s article, which includes two Denver-based professional athletes, is worth the read. I will base the rest of this blog with little comment on Jason Gay’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2025.

Golf’s best player romps to another major title, but not before kicking off a healthy debate about the purpose of it all.

“Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly?” Scheffler asked the assembled press, channeling Socrates. “I don’t know, because, if I win, it’s going to be awesome for two minutes.”

At another point, he said: “This isn’t a fulfilling life.”

“It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment,” Scheffler elaborated. “But it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places in your heart.”

Jason writes:

The whole ecosystem around sports is so consumed with the how that it almost never pauses to ask why… 

What if you get everything you’re working for, and it doesn’t make you whole?

Scheffler isn’t an especially flashy personality, and hasn’t strained himself to be one. He’s been candid about his spirituality and home life, how he prioritizes his faith and family over his profession. 

That’s his ballast. He reiterated it after winning the Claret Jug Sunday. 

“Golf is third in that order,” he said. “Golf isn’t how I identify myself. I don’t identify myself by winning tournaments, chasing trophies, being famous, or whatever it is.” 

Scheffler surely didn’t intend to launch a worldwide dialogue on the meaning of winning. But his words struck a chord in a distracted digital world, in which happiness is fleeting and there’s a gargantuan economy selling quick fixes (apps, pills, ice baths) without any hard thinking about what’s happening underneath. 

“I love the challenge,” Scheffler said. “I love being able to play this game for a living. It’s one of the greatest joys of my life, but does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not.”

Here’s the good part. Scheffler knows what fills him up. That became clear in the aftermath of his victory Sunday, when his 1-year-old son, Bennett, made an adorable attempt to ascend the 18th green. 

You could see it in Scottie Scheffler’s face. He’ll remember that moment forever.

That’s what matters. That’s all the meaning anyone needs.

Wow.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath… (1 Corinthians 9.25, ESV)

Scotty seems to be one of the few to know that the awards are temporary. And maybe that’s why God has him where he is “for such a time as this.” Before the final day of the 2022 Masters, which became his first Masters win, Scotty reported this conversation with his wife:

I cried like a baby this morning. I was so stressed out. I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting there telling Meredith [my wife], “I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m not ready, I don’t feel like I’m ready for this kind of stuff.” I just felt overwhelmed.

She told me, “Who are you to say that you are not ready?” What we talked about is that God is in control and that the Lord is leading me; and if today is my time, it’s my time. – Scotty Scheffler, 2022, as reported in the NY Post

For exaltation comes neither from the east Nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another. (Psalm 75.6, 7, NKJV)

God has people everywhere, for which I am thankful.

You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. God has a purpose in your being there. Christ lives in you and has something he wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ. – Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate

Today marks the beginning of the third week our old house has been on the market.

Real estate agents really like the “move out first, sell later” strategy since it allows a thorough cleaning and “staging.” It’s also easier on the homeowner not to have to leave the house every time there’s a showing.

In my case, the downside is the bridge loan I took out to buy the house we’re in now. Everything has gone smoothly so far. We just need to finish the process by selling the old house.

I’m asking God for:

• The right people – good neighbors to my former neighbors
• The right price
• The right time – sooner rather than later would be good

To put it even more succinctly: right people, right price, right NOW!

When tempted to be afraid – what if it doesn’t sell? – I remind myself:

He will have no fear of bad news. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure, he will have no fear. (Psalm 112.7, 8, NIV84)

My house sale is not the most important thing in the world, but it is important to me. Therefore, I follow Paul’s instruction:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4.6, 7, NIV)

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64.4, ESV)

We close out our reading of Proverbs. If you’re following the Bible Reading Schedule, you’ll see that we’re back in the Psalms (Book III, Psalm 73) today! But we won’t leave Proverbs without a look at the last chapter, Proverbs 31. It begins with a warning to leaders about drinking wine (Proverbs 31.1 – 9). The chapter concludes with the well-known section on the virtuous woman (Proverbs 31.10 – 31).

It’s a lovely passage, a tribute to hardworking, resourceful women, ending with…

Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her: “Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.” Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31.28 – 31, NKJV)

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” Good stuff.

There are those who emphasize other scriptures. A well-known Bible expositor…

…taught on Titus 2 and the apostle Paul’s instructions that women “be busy at home” and “subject to their husbands” (v. 5). He said that women should not work outside the home and families should not require two incomes. The leaders of the church decided the staff, not just the leadership, needed to be all male. – Christianity Today, July 14, 2025

It’s hard to reconcile such teaching with the Proverbs 31 woman:

She considers a field and buys it; From her profits she plants a vineyard. (Proverbs 31.16, NKJV)

She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies sashes for the merchants. (Proverbs 31.24, NKJV)

The Proverbs 31 woman may have worked from home, but she certainly didn’t stay home. And her contributions were a significant part of the family’s income.

God clearly honors such industrious women. The first convert in Europe was a female merchant:

Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. (Acts 16.14, 15, NKJV)

We like to talk about Paul’s tentmaking as a means to support himself, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone comment that it was a husband-wife tentmaking operation that he joined:

After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them. So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation they were tentmakers. (Acts 18.1 – 3, NKJV)

“By occupation, THEY were tentmakers.”

In our family, June’s piano teaching studio helped put our last kid through college and later helped us pay off our house.

Kudos to all of God’s women out there making important contributions inside and outside the home, as I wrote in this year’s Mother’s Day tribute.

Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. (Proverbs 31.10 – 12, NKJV)

A few random observations from Proverbs. First, I’d never seen this connection between something Jesus said and a proverb written long before.

Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king, And do not stand in the place of the great; For it is better that he say to you, “Come up here,” Than that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince, Whom your eyes have seen. (Proverbs 25.6, 7, NKJV)

Jesus expands on it…

So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14.7 – 11, NKJV)

James does the same thing – expand on a proverb:

Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth. (Proverbs 27.1, NKJV)

As with Jesus’ expansion of Proverbs 25.6, 7, the James version is more detailed:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4.13 – 16, NKJV)

Finally, Proverbs 27 contains verses which encouraged The Navigators, especially in the old days, to give specific correction to one another:

Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet…As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27.5 – 7, 17 NKJV)

The concept is supported in Proverbs 15:

The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding. (Proverbs 15.31, 32, NKJV)

Proverbs 29 opens with a warning on not receiving rebuke:

He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. (Proverbs 29.1, NKJV)

Good stuff all, as promised:

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding, To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity; To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion— A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, To understand a proverb and an enigma, The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1.1 – 7, NKJV)

We got caught up in living ARTFULLY and haven’t really written much from our Proverbs readings. Maybe it’s that most of the proverbs are self-explanatory and don’t need my extra verbiage!

I do like Proverbs 24, which opens with something June and I have built a marriage seminar around:

Through wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established; By knowledge the rooms are filled With all precious and pleasant riches. (Proverbs 24.3, 4, NKJV)

• Wisdom
• Understanding
• Knowledge

Maybe it’s applicable not only to marriage before but also this move! We’re working to fill the rooms (appropriately) with furniture and artwork – “precious and pleasant riches.” And it takes wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to do it right. It our family, most of that is supplied by June! I just hang the pictures where she wants them.

We are beginning recognize July 20 as National Moon Day in honor of the first moon landing, July 20, 1969. I remember it well, and I was privileged to meet several of the astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin about whom I wrote two blogs. Please check them out:

• Magnificent Desolation
• Humility

Buzz Aldrin preparing to salute the flag after the first moon landing

The moon landing was a magnificent achievement by tens of thousands of people over a remarkably short period of time: it was less than seven years from President John Kennedy’s “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech until the first manned landing.

We choose to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone. – John Kennedy, September 12, 1962

“That goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” There’s power in attempting something hard…together, something God recognized way back at the building of the tower of Babel:

And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11.6, ESV)

Are there worthy goals to attempt today? Either as a community of nations, the United States, or even the Church? It would require unity…which we’re not good at today at any level.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4.1 – 6, ESV)

This blog originally appeared July 20, 2023.

Today we look at the last item in our living ARTFULLY series: “Yielded.” When I first developed this acrostic, it was ARTFUL, ending with “Loving.” Then I added “Life-giving” and therefore needed the “Y” to finish it out. “Yielded” seemed like a reasonable choice. After all, submission to God is a concept taught throughout scripture. For example,

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4.7, 8, ESV)

But when I went to attach a scripture to the overview I presented last week, I was surprised that “yielded” is hard to find. In fact, it seems to be only in the King James’ version of Romans 6:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6.12, 13, KJV)

So “yielded” is a given. The question is, “Yielded to whom?”

Several of the ARTFULLY values need that clarification:

• Abiding…in what or whom? One can abide in sports and give one’s life to following a particular team. On a church mission trip once, I sat in front of two guys on the bus and listened to them discuss the Auburn University football roster. They went through it by player number – each guy’s position, how good he was, where he was on the depth chart, etc. WITHOUT anything in front of them! Those guys “abided” in Auburn football.
• Focused…on what? Again, it could be anything. A lot of folks in this country are focused on making money and buying as many “toys” as they can.
• Yielded. When I developed ARTFULLY, I assumed “Yielded to God.” But Romans 6 says we have a choice:

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6.16, KJV)

So let’s resolve to…

• Abide in Christ
• Focus on His Kingdom (“Your Kingdom come”)
• Yield to him (“Your will be done”)

Some of it is right there in the Lord’s prayer!

Join me in living ARTFULLY

• Abiding
• Rejoicing
• Thankful
• Focused
• Unattached
• Loving
• Life-giving
• Yielded
  

I’m not writing about all of my living ARTFULLY elements, just the ones that might not be obvious. So I’ll skip Loving and go to Life-giving. Here’s the list again:

• Abiding
• Rejoicing 
• Thankful
• Focused
• Unattached
• Loving
• Life-giving
• Yielded

I see Life-giving as what we do when we’re trying to help someone advance in their spiritual life. Jesus presented Paul’s mission that way. Here’s how Paul tells it:

And I said, “Who are you, Lord?” And the Lord said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to…

• open their eyes, so that they
• may turn from darkness to light and
• from the power of Satan to God, that they
• may receive
  • forgiveness of sins and
  • a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Acts 26.15 – 18, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

If that’s not life-giving, I don’t know what is!

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (John 6.35, ESV)

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1.9 – 14, ESV)

I added Unattached to my Artfully Living List…

• Abiding in Christ
• Rejoicing 
• Thankful
• Focused
• Unattached
• Loving
• Life-giving
• Yielded

…because I’ve been working on what Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, called “Indifference.” Since “indifference” doesn’t start with the “u” I needed, I’m calling it “unattached.” Ignatius defined it as:

Being detached enough from things, people, or experiences to be able either to take them up or to leave them aside, depending on whether they help us to “to praise, reverence, and serve God” (Spiritual Exercises 23). 

I like to use the Apostle Paul as an example:

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4.11 – 13, ESV)

A friend pointed me to Paul’s counsel to the Corinthians as another example of Unattached:

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7.29 – 31, ESV)

This move has been a good time to practice this discipline. For one of our granddaughters, we’re leaving the only house she’s ever associated with us. She’s making a documentary of her experience with the house, and she asked me, “How do you feel about leaving this house?” I had to tell her, “It’s just a house. We’ll create a home in the next house where you will be welcome.”

When I wrote about giving away MY childhood rocking chair, a blog reader responded, partly in jest because of my advanced age:

I can’t believe you gave away YOUR childhood rocker!! That’s an antique!!!

But it’s not hard to give something away if (1) you don’t need it, (2), you’re unattached to it (our theme), and (3) you have no place to put it!

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6.19 – 21, ESV)

POSIWID?! Bob, is that a typo? No, please recall that I promised yesterday a way to think about what our focus actually is, not what we say it is. POSIWID is a term introduced by Stafford Beer in the early 2000s:

The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID).

Not what we say it does or what we hope it does but what it actually does. Beer wrote:

There is no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. – Wikipedia: The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does

For example, if you observed a church over several weeks, what would you say its purpose is? The church might have a mission statement tucked away in a drawer somewhere, but what would your observations about the church’s activities lead you to believe its mission is?

I posed that question to a leader in a Christian mission, and his immediate response was something like:

To get as many people to attend the Sunday morning performance as possible.

Exactly. What about the average American Christian? Or you and I? Do we live that differently from our neighbors? Another formulation of POSIWID is the familiar adage:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. – Wikipedia, DuckTest

Back to focus. What’s yours? What’s mine? Maybe we need to look at our behavior to find out. Jesus said it first:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. (Matthew 7.15, 16, ESV, emphasis mine)