Aiming for the Pin

I have many dear friends whose youthful experience in the church was fraught with anxiety over “I’ll never be good enough” and the warning that nineteen out of twenty kids are doomed to stay forever out of heaven. Okay, you too? On the cusp of college graduation and my new gig as a teacher in an Adventist school, two rescuing lifeboats floated my way. I began reading stuff by C. S. Lewis and also a pastor named Morris Venden – ironically my mom’s cousin! Uncle Morrie recently passed to his rest, but for sure during my happy decade writing scripts for Voice of Prophecy, I claimed family privilege and borrowed liberally from his classic books. It’s been fun folding in sports illustrations (and you haven’t really lived until you play eighteen holes in downtown Bangkok. I swear it’s true: I almost beaned Bob Hope one December afternoon.) But even for a disciple who enjoys the blessed assurance of Calvary grace, it’s still better to “aim for the pin” than the sand trip off to the right. Or