God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

Ephesians 2:8

Almost every time I go to a golf course in North Carolina, I think that on my next visit I should leave my clubs at home, hang a couple of cameras around my neck and just walk around taking photographs.

Yesterday when I first arrived Cotton Valley was preternaturally quiet, a mantle of mist clinging to the ground, absorbing both light and sound.

I did enjoy the golf, and I even pulled off some fairly amazing shots (I also managed some dramatically bad ones). But the best part of the day was simply walking around the beautiful outdoors with a good friend, breathing the clear air and being grateful for the opportunity.

After a few holes we both decided that writing our scores down would be counter-productive. The point of being there was the relaxation, the fun, the shared experience, the practice. You can’t quantify that on a scorecard so we left it alone.

It was a good decision. I could – and frequently did – wave “goodbye” to an errant ball entering the woods and simply hit another one instead.

Grace actually improves us:

I think life needs to be approached a lot more like a relaxing practice round sometimes. Make a mistake? Rather than beat ourselves up, take a moment to identify how we could approach things differently and move forward from there.

This is what grace is all about. Grace doesn’t write down “QUADRUPLE BOGEY!” in all caps then circle it with a red marker and a frowny-face! Grace asks “what can we learn from this?” drops another ball and moves forward with the assurance that we are loved and valued regardless.

Grace does not keep score.

And this is where my recent readings in Galatians and Ephesians have been helping me to think about things: because when we walk in the light of Grace we tend not only to get better ourselves, but we out-perform the judgmental scorekeepers too.

So let’s live like we are loved and forgiven and free! – DEREK