Are We Better than Tiger Woods?

A friend of mine sent an e-mail to me today. He was commenting on the situation with Tiger Woods. He had posted a comment on his Facebook account and was disappointed in the responses he was receiving. So he asked me about my opinion. This was my response:

I'm sure that people would feel better if it had only been one mistress, or maybe just two. The whole 13-and-counting thing probably has people flustered. After all, we're talking affairs here, and that's a pretty big sin. Thirteen big sins (depending on if you count each person as a sin, or each contact with the person as a sin, in which case we're talking more than thirteen!) and you can see why folks come down so hard on him.

Maybe we should compare our lives to a new car. You pull it off the lot and it's absolutely pristine. You drive a mile and you're in heaven. The ride's smooth, the handling's superb, and it looks like a dream. You take great pains to treat it with tender loving care. You wash it and wax it regularly and keep the trunk and back seat cleaned out. You only drive on paved roads that are devoid of traffic, and park in the most outlying spots in the parking lot so nobody else is around you. You go out of your way to make sure that car gets as few dings as possible. The minimal damage your car does get you're quick to repair. Nobody's going to see anything less than a beautiful car.

Then you see the guy next door with his car. It's got big dents in the fender and paint is peeling off the hood. The windshield is pitted and has a few cracks in it. The tires are bald and you can tell when he has the motor running that he hasn't serviced the engine since he bought it. You laugh and think, "This guy is a terrible car owner. He has no clue!"

You and your neighbor drive your respective cars for years, you taking wonderful care of yours while he barely remembers to put gas in his tank. Then one day you both hear about a new car dealership in town that offers an incredible deal. They guarantee their cars last forever. And they don't cost a cent. All you need to do is bring in your trade-in in perfect condition and you can get your new vehicle!

Your neighbor goes in first, and as you expected, comes out empty-handed. You smile smugly as you walk into the owner's office (no salespeople here) and give him the keys to your car. He goes out and looks at it and comes back a few minutes later. "Sorry," he says, handing you your keys. "You don't qualify."

"What do you mean?" you ask. "I've taken care of that car like it was my own child! I've done all the maintenance and gone out of my way to protect this car! I've coddled and cuddled and made sure that it got everything it needed! It's like new!"

"Come with me," the owner says. He leads you into the parking lot and points to your car. "That's yours?" he asks. You nod. "Look at this," he says, pointing to the fender. "You've repainted this." He points to the tires. "These aren't the original tires. You've replaced them." He points to the front passenger seat. "The material on this seat is a little different from the rest of the car. You've either replaced the seat or had it recovered."

"Wait!" you cry out. "Of course I've had work done on the car. But I've restored it! It's like new!"

The owner shakes his head. "But it's not new. There's a difference. This vehicle never made it out of the plant in perfect condition. Because the plant wasn't in perfect condition, it couldn't help producing a product that wasn't perfect either. And things only got worse from there. Every pebble that touched the paint job, every piece of soot that has brushed along the fender, every inch of road that ran underneath the tires has left its mark, no matter how slight. You've done your best to repair any damage, but the parts you used were only new, not perfect, and certainly not the original parts. Your community might be fooled, but my eyes see past your feeble attempts to cover up even the slightest flaws. 'Like new' is not 'new', and 'new' is not 'perfect'. Your car does not qualify. I'm sorry."

And there you have it. We view sin through our sin-damaged eyes and assign levels of severity. Some sins are little; others are big. Then we look at the dings and dents in our lives and think, "Aw, they're just little. They're certainly not as bad as my neighbor's. I can cover those up." But God knows better. He knows that we are imperfect, born in sin, damaged goods before we ever take our first breath. In his perfect sight, even the tiniest scratch in our life stands out as if a sledgehammer had hit us. So while we start out "new", we are way less than "perfect" and all we do is go downhill from there.

And yet he still loves us and still sent his son to pay our way.

By the way, notice how we always look at people who have sinned "worse" than we have? Do you know anybody who will look at Tiger Woods and say, "Only thirteen women? What a pansy! I've had more than that! He's a saint compared to me!" Won't happen, and we know it.