Ryder Cup Lessons, Part 3b

We're looking at how perception affected the final results of the Ryder Cup... However first we need to lay some foundation to help us understand what passed off. Yesterday I covered a few not unusual wrong ideals humans have approximately faith and corrected them with a couple of statistics:

• It's not enough to just give mental assent to a belief, even if you believe the right things.
• It doesn't matter how hard you believe.

Today I want to look at how belief actually works. I'll call these facts The Mechanics of Faith... and I think I'm going to surprise most of you with this post. You're probably expecting some touchy-feely explanation of fuzzy concepts, but faith is actually something all of us use every day. I have a very concrete example that will make these "mechanics" crystal clear.

First, here's the description of our "laboratory:"

I want you to imagine you are trekking inside the woods. While you're there, a massive wooded area fire receives began and you need to run in your life. You can slightly stay beforehand of it however you are starting to assume you just would possibly make it... Whilst abruptly you have to prevent. You've reached a cliff and the woods run proper up to the edge of it, so that you can not stop here and be safe. You can see clean ground across the chasm, however you will fall for your loss of life if you try and leap. However -- and this is the important thing part of our little experiment -- there is a bridge from this side to the alternative. Are you safe?

The answer is... Maybe. And belief has a great deal to do with the eventual answer.

You see, a lot of this depends on whether you can trust that bridge or not. Can that bridge support your weight? Is it strong enough for you to get from this side of the chasm to the other?

This is one aspect of belief that often gets talked about in church but rarely gets any attention from motivational speakers or sports psychology. This is the first "mechanic" of belief: All faith is directed toward an object.

In our specific example, that bridge is the item of your religion... And whether or not it's worth of your faith or no longer is important for your survival.

Can that bridge support your weight long enough for you to get across the chasm? Then you've got a chance. Is that bridge too weak to hold you? Then you're dead. It's that simple.

"Faith in faith" is less than useless. Unless what you believe in is worth your trust, there is no amount of faith that can make it so. And that should help you understand the fact that confuses people the most -- namely, that it doesn't matter how hard you believe. Let's take another look at our bridge...

For this part of the experiment we'll expect the bridge is rotten and incapable of assisting your weight. It doesn't take a genius to recognise what is going to occur. No count how confident you are --i.E., how "tough you trust in" the bridge -- the instant your complete weight hits that bridge, it'll fall apart and send you plummeting to your death. (If it is any consolation, at the least you might not burn to demise within the forest hearth.)

Now suppose the bridge IS strong sufficient. You can run throughout that component at complete speed and TAH-DAHHHH! You're secure.

But... suppose the bridge is strong enough but you're not sure? Plus you're afraid of heights... but the fire keeps coming. Finally you decide you're even more afraid of becoming a crispy critter. What do you do? You get down on your hands and knees and slowly begin crawling onto the bridge. It takes every bit of courage you can muster but you keep putting one hand in front of the other. And what happens? You make it to the other side, safe and sound!

Do you understand now what Jesus meant when he talked about a "mustard seed" of faith? Assuming that what you believe in is worthy of your trust in the first place, it's not a question of how much you believe in it. Rather, it's about whether you have any trust at all! And that brings up the other primary "mechanic" most people don't understand when it comes to belief.

Remember the previous day when I stated that Bible verse about demons believing and it doing them no properly? I stated I'd be coming returned to it... And that is why.

That segment within the e-book of James maintains repeating the phrases "Faith without works is dead." (That pronouncing truly indicates up in numerous locations in each the Old and New Testaments, this means that it had been acknowledged for numerous thousand years whilst James used it.) This surprises loads of people due to the fact we Christians pressure which you can not paintings your way into heaven. But it truly is not what James is speakme about, and our bridge test explains it very well.

Imagine you stand at the edge of the cliff, staring at the bridge and yelling, "Yes, I believe this bridge can get me safely to the other side!" and that's all you do. What happens? You still get burned up in the forest fire, don't you? Why?

Because you failed to act for your belief. Just like the demons who James says agree with in God -- they believe God will punish evil but they don't repent in their evil and alternate their approaches. They do not act on what they recognize!

Now keep in mind the fellow with just sufficient religion in the bridge to get on his hands and knees and crawl across. Although he didn't have what we might name a "strong faith," his willingness to act on that tiny bit of perception finally ends up saving his lifestyles.

It's not enough to believe in something -- to give mental assent to certain facts, no matter how accurate they may be. Here is the second "mechanic" of belief: You have to act on a belief for it to be worth anything. Otherwise you don't really believe at all.

I think I can anticipate a certain question from you: How can you are saying the fellow who crawled across the bridge had any religion in any respect? As a long way as I can see, he truely did not have whatever to lose one way or the alternative.

That definitely is a superb question, and I can give you an inexpensive solution the use of what we have blanketed on this submit.

Looked at one way, you might say that "I don't really have anything to lose" IS a belief. Whether he was correct or not is up to debate, but I can address his response to this situation. You see, he actually had three different choices available to him here:

1. Leap into the chasm.
2. Stay on the cliff.
3. Cross the bridge.

His actions tell a slightly different story -- he DID have a belief. He clearly Believed the last option gave him the best chance of survival, and he acted on that belief by trying to cross the bridge. I would argue that "I don't really have anything to lose" was just a justification to help him act on the belief that "The bridge gives me my best chance to survive." It helped him avoid second-guessing himself:. Can't you hear the self-talk going on in his head? "You'll die for sure if you take option 1 or 2; at least 3 gives you a chance."

And I have to point out yet again -- because this basic "mechanic" of faith is so often overlooked -- if he hadn't tried to cross the bridge, it wouldn't have mattered what he said he Believed. If you're unwilling to act on a belief, you don't really believe it.

I think part of the purpose this "movement" element gets not noted is because identifying what type of movement to take is frequently the trickiest part. Go returned to what Jesus said about a person with "religion as a grain of mustard seed" being able to circulate a mountain. How do you act on that? I can recognize how trying to move the bridge acts on my perception that the bridge can get me to safety... But shifting a mountain? That's likely why we do not see mountains being tossed around!

The key is that it would take God's power to move a mountain, so God determines what action is necessary. I suspect that explains a lot of of the sillier-sounding Bible stories. God often told people to do strange things that seemed unrelated to the miracles they needed Him to do. Doing those strange things -- often very simple things that just made no sense -- were meant as actions that proved they Believed He would do what he said.

I'm going to make a blunt statement here that I doubt anyone can prove incorrect: People ALWAYS act on their beliefs. We can tell what they truly believe simply by watching how they act. They may say they believe this or that but, under pressure, actions rarely lie.

Even inaction is an action of sorts! If our hero from the bridge experiment said he Believed there was always hope but simply sat down and waited to die, we would all know that he actually Believed the situation was hopeless and that he could do nothing to change the outcome. You can use all the self-talk you want but you'll always act on what you truly believe. Just because you keep repeating something to yourself doesn't mean you believe it, no matter how often you say it.

So the vital issue here is to find out what we absolutely agree with in after which discover a useful way to act on it. And in the context of sports, figuring out what beliefs we have that may be harnessed to spur us into constructive action is not continually obvious. That's what we need to examine next.

And for the reason that this submit has gotten instead lengthy, I'll wreck off here. Tomorrow I'll use these "mechanics" to explain why both the 1999 and 2012 Ryder Cups have been shocking comebacks... And the way you may discover ways to play better underneath strain.