With the Masters golf tournament on this week, I found myself thinking about an interview I saw last year with Scottie Scheffler.
He was talking about what it feels like to win. To work your entire life for something, finally achieve it, and then realize all at once… Oh. This feeling fades quick for something I’ve been chasing for decades. You win, you celebrate, and then, Scottie says, you move onto, “What’s for dinner?”
I’d encourage you to watch the full interview. It’s really interesting.
Here’s a quote from it. I know it’s long, but bear with me: _____
“This is not a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling from a sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart. There are a lot of people who make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life. And then you get there, then all of a sudden you get to No. 1 in the world, and they’re, like, what’s the point? I really do believe that because, you know, what is the point? You are like, what? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That’s something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It’s like showing up at the Masters every year. It’s, like, why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly?”
“I guess what I’m trying to say is this is not the place to look for your satisfaction,” Scheffler. “This is something where you can have a great appreciation for and a great amount of thankfulness for being able to do this. Like I said, it’s literally one of the most fun things I can do in my entire life. I love being able to come out here and compete. But at the end of the day, it’s not what satisfies me, if that makes sense.” _____
If nothing else, I think a pretty powerful takeaway is this: Nothing, not even a win at the highest level of your profession, can fill the void inside.
It’s almost like we weren’t created for this world or something.
He wasn’t even talking from a place of cynicism. He actually said a couple times throughout the interview how meaningful it is from a career standpoint. But then, in the same breath: It’s just not what’s ultimately fulfilling. Not in the deepest places of your heart.
You could hear him wrestle with it, almost like he’s not even sure how to describe the mixture of earthly striving and divine contentedness. And how relatable is that? If you’re anything like me, you have a foot in this world and a foot out of it most times. You’re aware of Jesus in everyday life, you talk to God often. But you also fall prey to the lie that just one more win, one more purchase, one more bite, or one more ______ will make you feel something. That it will erase the pain or bring the delight we so desperately seek.
Scottie said it: What is the point?
You heard it from the very best of the best. A player playing at the highest level in his sport. I fact checked this – and even though he didn’t win this year’s Masters, he still holds the title for number one golfer in the world. Scottie is living out his lifelong dream. And still, satisfaction is in question for him.
So what does this mean? Like, what should be our takeaway here? In my opinion, here are a couple things to chew on.
1. Before you get to your mountaintop moment, take Scottie’s words to heart.
No matter how sweet you think that experience might taste, it won’t last. Reckoning with that now will help. I feel like expectations matter, and who better to learn from than someone who has been there? He told us the honest truth: that win was fleeting. But there’s good news…
2. We can reach for something that actually satisfies.
We have to find our joy, our peace, our true fulfillment in God. If you don’t know how, you’re in good company. It’s such an abstract statement: find joy in God. Like… ok. How???
In practice, it’s just remembering that the temporary joy hit you get from shopping or scrolling (or whatever your numbing agent of choice is)… is just that: temporary. Talk to God about it. Ask him to shift your focus from worldly to eternal.
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’” John 7:37-38
3. Make God what you want more than anything. Then chase that other thing.
We tend to believe that if we get the thing—whatever “the thing” is—we’ll finally feel settled. Happy, at peace, unburdened, whatever it is we think we’re chasing. But over and over again, we get there… and the feeling doesn’t last. It’s lackluster, even. The treadmill keeps turning. Take it from Scottie.
Here’s the solution: When we fix our eyes on Jesus, and then pursue our goals, that puts things in the right order.
It’s right there in Ecclesiastes: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.”
I think if we do those things, we better position ourselves to experience true joy.
I just finished reading The Big Leap, and it was a really interesting book. Short synopsis: We all have a ceiling for how much joy we’re wired to allow ourselves to experience. The author poses that we can actually train ourselves to return to a baseline of contentment more quickly and often. That happiness isn’t just about what happens to us, but how we respond to it. I think that’s part of it, but my take is that what we’re really doing is training ourselves to notice and enjoy the presence of the Spirit.
If we place our ultimate hope in things that were never meant to carry that weight, they will eventually let us down. Even the good things. Even the things we’ve worked really hard for. And what’s crazy is that it doesn’t even make them bad – but it does mean they’re not ultimate.
You can win the championship and still feel the question lingering underneath it all: Is this it?
No tournament, no pursuit, no quest was designed to satisfy the deepest places of our soul. That’s for God and God alone.
Anyway, I hope this reminder is helpful for you. The kind of peace and joy we’re actually looking for isn’t something we can build or earn or achieve our way into. It has to come from somewhere else.
This week, enjoy the good things. Celebrate them and be grateful for them. But don’t ask them to be more than they were ever meant to be.
In Progress,
Alyssa 💛
P.S. Wanna join the chat? Comment on my Substack. I’d love to hear how you’re processing.
