Tiger Woods' "Confession"

I find the British media coverage of Tiger Woods' public confession of his unfaithfulness, and his apology to the world, really interesting. In 'The Guardian', Owen Gibson's straightforward account of events was relegated to p3, whereas Zoe Williams' 'sketch' version was on the front page. It seems that many Brits just can't understand why Woods did this. Firstly, it insults our notions of being reserved and private about such matters. Secondly, we have so divorced sexual morality from the public sphere that many people are thinking: 'Why did he need to apologise?'

Gibson quotes Woods:

"I knew my actions were wrong but I convinced myself normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead I thought only about myself. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me... I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules."

In many ways, I'm sure we can all relate to what he said. There are times when we know something is wrong, but we go ahead and do it anyway. Our motives are purely selfish. But sometime or other, there are consequences for our actions. For Tiger Woods, those consequences erupted unpleasantly when he crashed his car. Soon evidence for a string of affairs was uncovered by the media. But there are other times when our wrong actions go undiscovered.

The Bible tells us plainly that all of us will have to stand before God and give an account of our lives (Matthew 12:36). God sees everything we do, say and even all that we think as well (Gen 6:5, 1 Chron 28:9, Psalm 139:2, Mt 12:25). It's not our place to make the rules about what's right and wrong. That was Adam and Eve's mistake in Eden: God declared that taking the fruit was wrong, and they decided otherwise. But the result of this was that sin and death came into the world. The existence of death, suffering and pain points us towards the fact that we stand under God's judgement. Why? Because we've pushed God out of His rightful place. We've snatched His crown and tried to put it on our own heads. We've rejected His right to rule in our lives.

But even if we go through life rejecting God's rules, they will still apply to us in the end. We don't get to play by different rules. There will be a Judgement Day, and if we've rejected God, then we face an eternity of being rejected by Him (Matthew 7:23).

There is punishment for those who reject God. But when Jesus died on the cross, He made a way for us to be set free. We have two choices:

1. Take God's punishment on ourselves
2. Let Jesus take God's punishment for us

If we truly believe and trust that Jesus has died for our wrong attitude towards God, then we can be reconciled to God through Him. Although we have rejected God in the past, we can become friends with God... even more than that, we can become children of God. (Eph1, 1 John 5)

The main criticism of Woods made by Williams' sketch was that many doubt the sincerity of his apology: 'He sounded as though he had zoned out a bit, as if he was reading out the rules of a sport.' And God doesn't want a sham-apology from us. God wants real faith and real repentance, and He Himself gives us His Spirit so that, supernaturally, we are given the ability to believe and to please God by living radically different lives. This is why living as a Christian is not like life in black-and-white. It's not a boring, textbook life. It's full blown technicolour! It's life when you finally see things as they truly are. You not only see the truth, but you live it as well. You are given power to live it through God's Spirit, working in you. (2 Peter 1:3)

Living life by your own rules isn't real life. You're playing a game, and a dangerous one at that.
Living life with God at the centre is where you find true joy and fulfilment (John 10:10).