God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8, NIV 1984)
At this time of year, when I am working with a number of golfers brand new to the game, I become quickly reminded of just how much there is to learn in order to play the game as it is played in tournaments, where every shot counts.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels it. The neophytes take one look at the players whose games are honed after several years of practice, and they wonder, sometimes dejectedly, how they could ever become that good. I tell them this, “There is really only one difference between you and them: about 100,000 golf balls.” Probably it’s more than that, but the cumulative effect of hitting 100 range balls 1,000 times will put you in pretty good stead if you’re athletic and teachable.
And here’s how that teachability must begin: you have to let your coach define your needs. I have to limit those early practices to a few simple things. For days, we hit a lot of 8-irons and putt, putt, putt. Later, we layer in the driver, a mid-iron, pitching. Basically, we’re narrowing the landscape and building a life in the game, one piece at a time.
Now understand, this illustration was born out of my thinking about needs in the context of today’s verse and what we normally regard as our needs. Because here’s the trouble—there’s nothing we normally regard as our needs. What I call a need, you may call a frivolity, and vice versa. And where this gets really dangerous is when we cast these interpreted needs in the form of a prayer, expecting God to agree with us and supply what we call “urgent,” “desperate,” or “vital.”
But if God is the author and perfecter of our faith, then we must allow that he is also the one who defines our needs. What we need this year may be very different than what we needed last year. And here’s a thought even more scary: what we might need most right now is to feel needy. A dear friend, now departed, used to tell me that we must “give God what we lack.” It would be a backwards form of logic if it weren’t completely true! You see, sometimes God makes us needy to draw us closer to him.
Our Lord intends to give us what we need, not what we think we need. And he intends to do this for one of his grandest purposes: that we will abound in every good work. To do that, what we may need is to go hungry or suffer a loss or to be persecuted for his name. I wouldn’t list any one of these on my life’s “grocery list,” but I’m not, you well know, God. I have to trust that he is teaching me exactly what I need to learn today.
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Jeff Hopper
February 1, 2012
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday at www.linksplayers.com.