Are we using the Tiger?

I can almost bet, like me you have been reading about Tiger Woods lately. I do not know how he has been billed in the US; I have read only that he has been held up as a role model for young people. Over here we do not see his face in advertisements but no doubt he has many fans here. As a celebrity golfer, I am sure product makers would want their products to be endorsed by him. That may change now.

The world is clamoring for heroes. They have become rare commodities. They have become rare because Christianity in the West is now in decline. What used to underpin the moral stability of the West, is no longer there, it is shunned and even hated. It is even skewed in what they think is a hero.

I have been thinking much about the Tiger. I am sad. I am sad because as a fellow human being, he is going through a dark spot in his life. Someone (I can almost hear) ,I am sure, would say - what are you so sad about, the guy has billion dollar bucks coming out of his ears, no sympathy is required.

I was wondering if the job of being a role model was too much for him to bear. What if the pressure was so big, he knew himself that he did not fit the bill and he cracked under the pressure. What if fame made his life complicated? What if he himself needed a hero? What if?

Was the media too much in a hurry to turn him to be a hero? Why can’t a hero be somebody who lives a simple life, someone who battles daily to support his wife and kids, someone who does not have enough yet is happy simply to pour out his life so that his family might survive. Why can’t a hero be someone who gives whatever little he has to his family and to others? Why can’t a hero be someone who can’t point to a skill or talent or fortune in himself, but only has his clean name?

I have heard and am aware of husbands who had more affairs than the Tiger and who fathered many children (lots) outside marriage, but they don’t get in the news. If we would ask Jesus, all of us should be in the news, if you know what I mean.

The media used Tiger Woods, and who knows perhaps Tiger used them too. For sure, they are using him again. I feel for his wife, his parents and children, of course, for him too.

I would think if I were in his shoes, I should envy that suburban husband down the street who struggles to make ends meet, yet has no complications and lives relatively at peace in the company and support of his wife and kids. I know I would trade places with such a man.

I hope he seeks some pastoral counsel. That is what he needs right now.

I pray he (we) might understand that our first sin is not towards others, and that before we commit those sins against our neighbor, we commit them first towards God.