“In the future your children will ask you, ‘What is the meaning of these laws, decrees and regulations that the LORD our God has commanded us to obey?’” (Deuteronomy 6:20, NIV)
Golfers and children are a lot alike. Their problems never go away; they just become more sophisticated.
When you first start playing the game, your try exceeds your why. You’ll do anything to get the ball airborne. And when you do, that will carry you along for weeks and maybe months on end. But once they’re all in the air, you’ll have new questions: Why are they all going to the right? What do I have to do to add more distance? How do I flight the ball down to keep it under the wind? Is there a way to limit the ball from spinning back off the front of the green?
In truth, many golfers never get to those later questions. They’re not interested in taking the game that far. Let them write a par on their scorecard once or twice a round, and they’re happy.
Children, too, start off simple. Eat, drink, sleep, roll around. Soon they move on to trying. And eventually, the famous why phase kicks in: Why does the sun have to be so hot? Why do I have to brush my teeth? Why do you and Mom always fight about money? Why do people we trust let us down so painfully? Why does God allow people to die of cancer?
Obviously, the later questions this time don’t really belong to the why phase of a four-year-old. They come from a hurting heart, an active mind, a spirit trying to align with its Creator.
One of the hardest hours in parenting comes when we must admit that we don’t have all the answers. It’s also one of the hardest hours of living out our faith. The anticipated questions of the Hebrew children are now the questions of believers and detractors, of law-abiders and grace-dependents, of those assured and those doubting, of anyone willing to stop for a moment and think: What is the meaning of all this?
It’s a question we cannot answer completely, but it’s a question we must never abandon. Our children and grandchildren will ask it, and we must show them that we have been thinking about it all along, that we are not afraid to face up to God, that we trust his design and its outworking. There was good reason for the Hebrew law (you can read it in the ensuing verses), and there is good reason to obey God today. We don’t have to be afraid of the whys—not when we ask them ourselves and not when others ask them of us. But we do need to keep inquiring, keep studying, keep praying for understanding, and keep obeying (for therein lies the confirmation of God’s good plan). We need to look for the reason of God and God’s reasons, and then we need to cling to all we find true of him.
—
Jeff Hopper
July 9, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.