I carefully listened and watched as Tiger Woods apologized to the world. A mea culpa like Tiger's is often an indicator as to where our society is at and how we deal with sin and recovery. There was one section that stood out to me during his apology when he talked about his Buddhist faith. I leaned forward in my chair as I listened:

"Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security."

That sounds lovely (especially with his mom sitting in the front row), but there is a big problem with this way of thinking: Tiger Woods.

He spent the whole press conference honorably taking the blame and reaching out to protect his family. However, the crux of his recovery efforts are based around finding happiness and security in himself—the same self that just destroyed his own family, his reputation, and violated the trust of many close to him.

Cravings for things outside ourselves are not the problem. We are the problem. C.S. Lewis touched on this in his classic book Mere Christianity:

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Spending your whole life trying to find happiness and security within will only lead to depression and exasperation because we realize our own relentless imperfection. It follows us like our shadow. The beauty of the message of Christ is this:

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8

The thief on the cross next to Jesus didn't have time to go and clean himself up. The truth is, he couldn't have anyway. He needed to be made anew and ransomed by Christ through faith.

The bald reality is that we all die eventually. Everyone. Even Tiger Woods. No inner peace will ever change that. No one will ever find security within our human frame for that. We weren't made to. Either it's survival of the fittest or we were made for another world.