Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose. (Philippians 1:21, MSG)
Although I failed in my most recent attempt, my wife says I still know all the words to Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.” It’s a story song, a ballad, the kind that is easy to memorize, but maybe it is a line from the song’s refrain that caught my subconscious attention as a golfer:
You never count your money
While you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
All my life, I’ve made the mistake of any mentally weak golfer. I add up my score far too early. From the first hole forward, if you want to know the truth. I always know what I need on the home holes to break 90, 80, 70.
Only the other day, Josh Nelson told me of the afternoon when his father, Hall of Famer Larry Nelson, made 12 birdies in a round but missed a putt at the last for his “first 59.” Larry was disappointed. Then he was told this course was a par 70. He hadn’t shot 60 or 59. He’d posted 58. And until it was over, he didn’t know it.
What I do know is that many men I have revered in my own life have not been afraid to consider what their epitaph will say.That’s the way golf is supposed to be played and, apparently, poker too. But we’d all do a lot better, I’m thinking, if we paid attention to the purpose of our lives long before the end.
Late last week, perhaps America’s greatest living sportswriter, Dan Jenkins, passed away. He was 89. He covered 45 Open Championships, 56 PGAs, 63 US Opens, and 68 Masters. You’ll find him in the Hall of Fame with Larry Nelson. Unsurprisingly, the eulogistic pieces you could find all over the internet on Friday paid him lofty tribute. Though Jenkins’ writing could make light of immodesty and immoderation, he was a rather tame fellow, really, and a beloved family man. What never seemed to show up, not in the hours following his death or the many years preceding it, was any pulse of faith. And sadly, every tribute in the world doesn’t add up to eternity.
I cannot know absolutely the heart of another man, especially when I did not know the man himself. What I do know is that many men I have revered in my own life have not been afraid to consider what their epitaph will say. And most of them don’t care much what is written of their earthly gains but only that those words will point to heaven.
For we who believe the simple formula that Jesus saves, life in the kingdom of God begins on the day we say yes to him. But that life leaps forward—ironically, notably—on the day we die. In that moment, we will be with him in paradise. So it makes greatest sense that the things we do now prepare us for that reception. Day by day unto that one.
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Jeff Hopper
March 12, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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