The issue here is that I cheated, I am the only person to blame.  I stopped living according to my core values.  I knew what I was doing was wrong but thought only about myself and thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to ... I felt I was entitled.  I had worked hard.  Money and fame made me believe I was entitled.  I was wrong and foolish.  I don’t get to live by different rules.  The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me.  I hurt my mother, my wife, kids, friends, my foundation.  This has made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to again.  It is time to make amends and that starts by never repeating this behavior again.  It’s not what you achieve in life that matters, it is what you overcome.  Achievements on the golf course are not what matters, decency and honesty are what matter.  Families used to look up to me as a role model to their kids. To those families I am so sorry.
~ Tiger Woods, Feb. 19, 2010

I don’t get to live by different rules ...

For years Tiger Woods thought he did get to live by different rules.  And where would he get such an idea?  Look around.  The world has long sent the message that if you are rich, powerful, strong, beautiful, talented or brilliant then the rules don’t apply to you.

In 1989, Leona Helmsley, wife and heir of New York real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley, was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison for mail fraud and tax evasion.  A former housekeeper quoted her as saying: “We don’t pay taxes.  Only the little people pay taxes.”

Such an attitude of preening arrogance and entitlement will bring the hand of the Lord against a person.

Any person ... whether you are one of the “big” people, or one of the “little” people.

When God gave the law through Moses he anticipated a future time when the people would say “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us.”  Knowing that such a day would come, the Creator of heaven and earth demanded that this king follow the same laws as his subjects.  Just in case he was tempted to let power go to his head and start thinking that he was a law to himself, Moses delivered an unmistakable prescriptive:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites.  It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.  Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
~ Deut. 17:18-20

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.  Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
~ Rev. 20: 11,12