I played a full round of golf recently for the first time in a while. (And boy does my body hurt!) It reminded me how much I love that game. I’m certainly biased—as I’ve been playing golf since I was six years old—but I believe golf is not only the greatest sport there is, but the hardest as well. You have to be incredibly talented to play professionally (e.g. Tiger Woods), but even more, any golfer who chooses to play competitively (or even recreationally) has to be mentally tough.

The majority of golf is played in your head. Or as the late, great Arnold Palmer famously said, “Golf is a game of inches. The most important are the six inches between your ears.” You can have the greatest skill set, but if you don’t mental toughness, then you won’t be a good player.

You need a good “mental game” because there will be many peaks and valleys in golf. It’s not all good, like with any other sport. Each round of golf brings its fair share of frustrations, of twists and turns, of triumphs and high-fives. It’s up to the player to decide how those things will affect him or her. There are many mental aspects of the game that make or break a golfer, but none more important than this: playing golf one hole, or even one shot, at a time.

This concept of playing one hole or shot at a time—of essentially being in the moment—is paramount to the Christian life. What helps us strive for holiness is to keep our eyes set on Jesus and the day before us. Sure, we must look to the future glory that awaits us. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

There are two ends of the spectrum here that hinder our walks with Jesus on a daily basis. It can be easy to think, “How am I going to get through the next week or month or even year?” We see how much we’re failing, we notice the continual missteps with indwelling sin and feel like the future is bleak, that we’re not going to make it. We just can’t get our act together. Our eyes are fixated on not making it instead of focusing on the day at hand. We lose sight of Jesus.

The same is true with looking back. If I hit a bad shot on the golf course, it’s very easy to keep thinking about it even when I’m on another hole. I replay the shot over and over and that simply adds to my frustration. When that happens, I lose focus and start to play poorly because I won’t stay in the moment.

In the same vein, if I yield to sin in the moment of temptation, and then focus on that failure all day, it’s going to affect my attitude for the rest of the day. I’m going to be frustrated, irritable, and not focus on pursuing Christ.

This is why I must stay in the moment. Even if I sin, even if I succumb to temptation, I have to keep my eyes off myself and place them on Jesus. It’s possible to hit a poor shot but then proceed to play well the rest of the day. Similarly, it’s possible to faithfully pursue holiness even after you fall into sin.

The crux is to stay in the moment. Take your walk with Jesus day by day. Don’t dwell on past mistakes, and don’t worry about the future. Keep your eyes on Christ’s glory in the present and yield to the Holy Spirit’s power within you to steady your walk as you pursue holiness.