I love disc golf. I used to play it every week. Life has gotten busy and now I am down to a few times a year but the sport is one of my favorite things to do.
Years back when I was younger and more nimble, I could throw the disc a pretty good distance but I was by no means a professional level player. There is a hole at Cliff Stephens park in Clearwater, Florida that was 425 feet of water carry with the basket at 450. If you didn’t have that kind of distance you had to throw over to the right and then keep throwing down the shore until you got to the basket.
I had no idea that someone could throw 450 feet. I had no conception that someone could throw the disc straight across the water…until I ran into a couple of guys who were playing through and we proceeded to play hole 16 together.
The threw straight at the basket! They crushed it…their discs sailed all the way across to the other side. I didn’t have the guts to try to do that in front of them but something clicked in that moment. What I didn’t know was possible was possible. The next week, by myself, I tried to throw it across and while I didn’t get all the way to the pin, I did clear all that water!
It wasn’t until I saw someone do it that I knew it could be done.
Ministry can be that way. We can get so caught up in doing things by our own power and insight that we have little conception just how much God can do if we submit to him. We might settle for 2 or 3 baptisms a year when God might help us to 10X that or more.
It is important that we spend time with people who are more spiritually mature than we are. Those who are able to throw it across the water. Then we can see what God can do…what is truly possible and try things we would have never tried otherwise. And, by the way, you cannot spell disciple without the word disc 🙂
