Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. (Psalm 126:5, NIV)
Golf is not always about skillful play.
We have all heard stories of those whose first shot ever resulted in a hole-in-one. It makes you shake your head every time you read or hear such tales.
At this year’s British Open Championship, the prior week’s Scottish Open winner Brandon Stone sent his second shot at the eighteenth wildly left and surely out of bounds. You probably saw what happened: the ball hit the grandstand on the other side of the white stakes and came screaming back onto the course, finding its way to a resting spot hole high on the edge of the green.
If even death can be untoothed of its lethal bite, what sense are we to make of the world?Golf isn’t supposed to be this way. I saw recently the words of a local professional who told a long-remembering pupil, “Not every shot has a story.” The pupil called it the best golf advice he had received in his life. As much as we golfers can chat up the remarkable, much of the game isn’t. Keeping this in mind helps us guard against getting too uptight when nothing interesting is happening. It also makes the counterintuitive stories so much livelier.
Life is generally ordinary, too. If you’re 50 years old and care about your teeth, you’ve brushed them approximately 40,000 times already. You’ve been asleep for 16 or 17 years of your existence. And if you live someplace busy, we won’t even talk about how much time you’ve spent in traffic.
But life has its standout events and marquee seasons, too. Conversely, we meet up with disappointment, mild and bitter. The birth of a child shines without equal in terms of joy; the death of a little one is among life’s meanest tragedies.
Sorrow and joy. Life delivers both of these. It does so randomly, against the ordinary. And maybe—though defying explanation—this is how it was meant to be.
The psalmist wrote that it is from tears that songs of joy are reaped. In similar fashion, Jesus said it was the meek who inherit the earth. Paul echoed the prophet Hosea when he asked, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). If even death can be untoothed of its lethal bite, what sense are we to make of the world?
Perhaps we do best to sing heartily, as the pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem did in the core of Psalm 126. It goes like this: “The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”
We will always have a choice in this life that brings us both pleasure and pain. We can focus on the pain, as Job’s wife did, and give in to the temptation to curse God and everyone around us. Or we can let the pain push us closer to Jesus, where it is easier to see what’s right in front of our eyes: the blessings of God. When we do the latter, we may find that we really are filled with his joy, even in the worst of all times.
—
Jeff Hopper
August 6, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
OTHER DEVOTIONS IN THIS SERIES
Ascending: Common Complaints (Psalm 120)
Ascending: In God’s Care (Psalm 121)
Ascending: Joy and Peace in Fellowship (Psalm 122)
Ascending: The Mercy We Need (Psalm 123)
Ascending: How Great An Escape (Psalm 124)
Ascending: Stark Lines (Psalm 125)
Ascending: Work and Home (Psalm 127)
Ascending: ‘Blessed’ (Psalm 128)
Ascending: Set Free (Psalm 129)
Ascending: Finding Forgiveness (Psalm 130)
Ascending: Our Waiting, Impatient Soul (Psalm 131)
Ascending: Despite Our Sin (Psalm 132)
Ascending: Together in Christ (Psalm 133)
Ascending: Earth to Heaven, Heaven to Earth (Psalm 134)