I recently played a completely normal round of golf and made a deliberate and honestly kind of random observation. And now that I think about it, random observations seem to happen with me with alarming frequency. Most of them aren't worth talking about, but but I think this one was. In fact, it was interesting enough to become its own podcast episode. Now, what I'm about to tell you won't make sense much at first, but stick with me because it'll come full circle in the end. The round took me four hours and 12 minutes to play. That's 252 minutes. I'll do the math for you. But after doing the math, I discovered that I only spent about 23 minutes of those actually playing golf. As in, from the moment I teed up a shot until the ball stopped moving, all 18 holes combined added up to roughly 23 minutes, which raised an important question for me. What exactly was I doing the other 229 minutes? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. So stick around and I'll tell you. And maybe the most important parts of golf don't happen during the shots. Maybe they happen between the shots. When I think back on some of my favorite rounds, I don't immediately think of the shots or the score. In fact, there are rounds I can barely remember what I shot, but I can tell you exactly who I played with. I remember the conversations from years ago. I remember laughing so hard on a T-Box that none of us could hit our shots. I remember stories being shared while walking down the fairway. I remember difficult confessions and tough conversations that followed. And that's when the thought hit me. The older I get, the more I realize that golf just isn't played during the swings. It's lived during the spaces between them. And I think life works the same way. One of my favorite stories is about Jesus found in Mark chapter 5, verse 21 through 34. So let me set the scene. Jesus had just crossed the lake when a synagogue leader named Jairus approaches him in desperation. We read in Mark that Jairus begs Jesus to come to heal his dying daughter. And of course, Jesus agrees. And according to Mark, he starts making his way towards Jairus' house. It's an urgent situation. His daughter is literally going to die in the next few minutes. So a little girl is dying, and if there was ever a moment to stay focused on the destination, this would seem to be it. But while Jesus was walking through the crowd, an enormous crowd, by the way, something interesting happens. In Mark chapter 5, 25 through 29, we're introduced to a woman who has been suffering from bleeding most of her life. For 12 years, in fact. She had spent everything she had on doctors, and it had only gotten worse. She had to live outside of the city. She had no contact with communication with anybody, no spouse, no job, no employment. And she believed that if she could just simply touch Jesus' cloak, she would be healed. So she reaches through the crowd, probably crawling on her knees in the dirt, her face just covered in dust and being trampled on. And somehow, somehow, through the pain, through the people, through the noise, she touches him. And immediately she's healed. Now, what happens next has always fascinated me. And according to verse 30, Jesus stops. Not slows down, not makes a mental note to circle back later. He stops. And then he asks, Who touched my clothes? And the disciples are bewildered. They're like, Man, there's like a thousand people here. We we have no idea. Every everybody is touching your clothes. And in Mark 31, the disciples say, Lord, there are people everywhere. Everybody is touching you, but Jesus knows something is different. And in verse 32, he keeps looking until he finds her. And what strikes me about that story is that everyone else saw a crowd. Jesus saw a woman. Everyone else was focused on where they were going, but Jesus was paying attention to who was right in front of him. And that's a remarkable way to live. And if I'm being honest, it's not always how I live. There are days when I'm so focused on the next thing that I miss the thing right in front of me. My body is present, but my mind is somewhere else. And I wonder how many opportunities I've walked right past because I was too focused on getting somewhere. Maybe you've experienced that too. Maybe you've overlooked someone who needed encouragement because your attention was fixed on your own agenda. Maybe you've been physically present but emotionally absent. And that's easy to do. Our culture practically rewards that. And golf provides a surprising picture of this. Have you ever played with someone who spends their entire round living in the future? Before the shot is even over, they're already thinking about the next one. Meanwhile, life is happening all around them. A friend is telling a story, a beautiful sunrise is breaking over the trees, somebody in the group is having the round of their life, but they miss it because they're mentally somewhere else. They're on the course, but they're not really there. And the truth is, most of life happens in what I call the 229 minutes, the moments between the big events, the conversations we didn't plan, the interruptions we didn't expect, the people that we weren't looking for. That's where ministry often happens. That's where encouragement happens. That's where relationships are built. I doubt that woman ever forgot the moment Jesus stopped. Not just because she was healed, but because she was noticed. For 12 years she had lived in the shadows. Then one day Jesus stopped everything to see her. And sometimes people just need advice or help. But sometimes they simply just need to know they're not invisible. And that's my challenge for me and hopefully you this week is to pay attention to your 229 minutes. The few extra moments with a cashier or a neighbor, maybe a coworker or just a friend. Slow down long enough just to notice people. Because you never know when God has placed someone in your path who just simply needs to be seen. Jesus never seemed too busy to notice a person, even in a crowd, even on his way to somewhere important, even when everyone else kept moving. He stopped, he looked, he cared. And maybe that's what he wants us to do too. Hey, thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Shankation. We'll see you guys next week. And in the meantime, keep chasing better.