Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD! (Isaiah 31:1, NASB)
A few days ago I was at my home course and playing golf like a man who knew something about it. My golf ball had suddenly become attentive, listening to me and obeying my every command. “Bounce left!” I would say, and left it would bounce. “Sit” could not have been performed better by a trained poodle at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
My clubs seemed to select themselves, willingly hitting the ball with power or finesse on the right line. My putter had the touch of violin bow in the hands of a master, and my driver needed no guidance from me to find the fairway.
Then on number ten, a long par-4, I failed to speak to the ball on my tee shot. It looked like it was doing fine, but I know now I should have told it to keep right. When I got down the fairway, I was shocked to find it in a bunker. Not sitting beautifully, either, but at the base of a side slope that gave me an awkward stance. My second shot was short of the green by 50 yards.
No problem, I thought. I’ll get up and down. I hit a good pitch, but on the putt I held the violin bow too tightly, and the screeching sound was my first bogey of the day. I followed that with a par, then another (!) bogey. On thirteen, I was only 20 feet away from birdie but my ball, which was now listening like a rebellious teenager, had nestled up against the tall grass just off the green.
A weak chip and two putts later I looked at my playing partner and said, “I have trust issues.”
When things were going well, trust never entered my mind. I didn’t question, I didn’t doubt, I didn’t second-guess, I just played with complete trust in my game. But when things got iffy on ten, my trust decreased and my score increased. Once I recognized the problem I corrected it and stopped the bleeding, but the damage had been done.
Life is much the same. When things are fine, I trust God to take care of everything and he does. But when things get bad, do I still trust God? Not always so easily. I trust myself, or I behave like the Jews who thought they couldn’t fight the enemy so they’d go down to Egypt and hire chariots and horsemen to fight for them, ignoring the Lord.
Trust is simple in good times, but it is in the challenging times when we need most to exercise it. I know this well enough in golf that I even wrote about it in my book, but I still failed to do it. In life the good news is that God will still fight for us if we will stop looking to Egypt and turn back to him. Read all of Isaiah 31, and you will see how much God wants to fight for Israel.
He wants to fight for you, too. Will you trust him?
—
Lewis Greer
September 7, 2015
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.