“And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” (Isaiah 58:11, NASB)
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of traveling to Virginia to visit with my brother and his wife and play a little golf. As God is wont to do, the trip was filled with unexpected twists, joys and challenges. Perhaps I’m simply more aware of God’s hand when I’m away from my home base—that part of the world I “control” on a day to day basis. Or perhaps I “let go and let God” more easily when I’m on the road.
Whatever the case, I always appreciate having God as a guide. He takes me to people and places I might never find otherwise, and the very cool thing is, he uses golf as a vehicle for much of it.
This trip started with golf as an excuse for a visit. The member/guest tournament at my brother’s club in Charlottesville is always around the last weekend in June, and this would be our fifth entry into that event. Earlier in the year my brother had come to Arizona to play in the inaugural member/guest at my club. We had a great time, didn’t finish last, and vowed we’d do even better in Virginia. I also gave my brother a stack of Links Players Magazines to take back to his club.
About the end of May, he and I were talking on the phone when he asked me if I knew who Tom Flory was. I asked him why, and he said that recently this Tom fellow had picked up one of those Links Players Magazines, asked the local pro where they had come from, then got my brother’s number and called him. He said that he “used to be involved” with Links Players, that he was a member at my brother’s club, and that he’d like to get together with him for lunch or golf one day.
I said, “Yes, he was a little bit ‘involved.’ Tom Flory and Jim Hiskey were the founders of Links Players.” More than 2,000 miles apart, you could have knocked my brother and me both over with the same feather. One of the founders of the ministry I’m part of is a member (and the Senior Men’s Club Champion!) at a club clear across the country where my brother has been a member for seven years.
Who knew? God knew.
And so it happened that a month later Tom Flory, my brother Bill and I teed it up together at their club for a casual round. Skeptics might write that off as “a coincidence,” but I know better. God has promised that he will guide us, and he does just that. That guidance may not be as obvious as the pillar of cloud that led the children of Israel, it may not be as immediate as the answer given to the servant of Abraham who was tasked with finding a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:12-26), and it may not be as dramatic as Philip leaving the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:39). It may be a magazine, it may be a pairing in a tournament, it may be a suddenly open schedule, it may be a missed airline connection, but it is still God. All of those, by the way, were used by God to guide me on that one trip.
How is God guiding me today? How is he guiding you? May we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and feet to follow.
—
Lewis Greer
July 29, 2013
Copyright 2013 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.