Is Tiger Woods Happy Today?

Tiger Woods. Here's a guy who is the best in the world at what he does, has world-wide fame and honor, makes a gazillion dollars a year, is married to a stunningly-beautiful woman, drives vehicles very few of us will ever own, lives in a house in a neighborhood that most of us will only visit to look at the houses.

But it wasn't enough. It didn't make Tiger happy anymore. Something was missing. So Tiger searched for happiness with other women. Sex is the fastest fix for unhappiness. And for Tiger, so easy to come by. But he soon found out one woman wasn't enough, nor were two, nor three. I do not know whether or not Tiger had already figured out before he wrecked his car in the accident heard round the world, that sex was never going to make him happy. Perhaps by then he was just using it to mask the emptiness that was still there.

Tiger Woods had everything, but it wasn't enough. He had a craving in his soul, and still does, that nothing in this world exterior to himself can ever satisfy. He was like a man on a desert island, surrounded by stacks of gold and all the women he could want, but without food.

What Tiger needs to be happy, what all of us need to be happy, is God. We are engines that run on God. Perhaps Tiger thinks he knows God. He knows the difference between right and wrong, and I will credit him with being ashamed today. But you see, when you come to God's banquet, and partake of God, you have to eat something from every table.

You see Christians every day who still don't know this. But then, it isn't like they hear much about it from the pulpit anymore. They are happy to partake of the water of life. The wine is good, too. "But all those other tables? I'm sure the food is good for me, but I'll just have a snack for now. Something from the dessert tray." And then they try to sustain themselves only from the dessert tray.

In my mind this person attends a megachurch, faithfully every Sunday. He sings with the guitars playing and the drums pounding. He feels good! He donates cheerfully because it never is enough to hurt. And on Facebook, he tries to convince people that the Bible is a science book, too. And he unfriends those who argue with him, especially those that claim to be Christians. In short, he does all those things that make him feel good when he does them, because God wants us to be happy, right? And if we do those religious things that make us happy, we must be on the right track, right?

You can be real happy living on desserts for a long time, but eventually, you get fat and your health goes. Even then you may keep going with the dessert diet, and search for other kinds of "food", or consult with assorted doctors for relief from your maladies. You may decide the problem is your spouse, and find a new one. Or your friends, and abandon them. Or your church, and seek out a new one. Or your home, and uproot for another. And if you have children, they'll just have to go along, until the time comes when they can be abandoned, too.

But it will never work. You have to eat from every table, and some of the dishes taste very bad. And on some tables, everything tastes bad, and eating it will make you unhappy. But it's food you need. Eat from every table, and you will feel satisfied.

There is no other alternative.

No matter where they go, no matter what they do, no matter how much they have, no matter who they befriend, empty, unhappy people remain unhappy because their unnourished souls are always with them. Their lives are never without drama. Sometimes they substitute drama for the food they need. But they remain unhappy.

When you turn down food from some of the tables, God is not upset because you turned it down. He doesn't make you feel like hell. He is upset because He knows you need it, and feeling like hell is the result of refusing it, like hunger pangs are the result of not eating.

And also starvation.