Offer right sacrifices and trust in the LORD. (Psalm 4:5, NIV)
It’s not just golf. No matter what sport you follow, if you watch the best players in the world, you will hear the stories of sacrifice.
Athletes don’t like to tell these stories themselves. It can sound prideful to say, “I work harder than anyone else.” But when victory comes, especially after many losses, the tears flow and these words, too: “I’ve worked so hard for this. There are times when I doubted it would ever happen, but I kept putting in the work, and it has finally paid off.”
We never really know when the payoff will come. Many have worked and never won. Many have poured into their studies then failed the test. Many have made great sacrifices of time and money to build a business, only to watch customers go somewhere else. Many have given years to their children, then witness them choose destructive paths. In all these cases, we can ask the hardest question: “What is the point of such sacrifice?” All we can hope is that someday we’ll know.
But this is what we must understand about our hope: It is built on the Lord God himself.
Trophies are won on Sunday, perhaps, but they are earned every day of the week, every month of the year.David, our psalmist, was king of a sacrificing people. The men and women of Israel brought sacrifices to the temple in accordance with the instruction of the Lord. They did so in thanks and praise and contrition. They did so because God commanded it. But it must have seemed like so much religion. Unless they remembered to trust in the Lord. He would redeem their obedience, which he repeatedly told them was better than sacrifice.
The disciplines of athletes are laborious. They place demands on one’s time and one’s body. The work is long and lonely. The reward is distant, if indeed it comes at all. But it is the picture of that reward that drives them. Trophies are won on Sunday, perhaps, but they are earned every day of the week, every month of the year. And that toil of that earning is driven by the hope of great reward.
So we do what God says as we go through our days. We trust that when he calls us to “be living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1), he knows what we will gain through such self-denial and discipline. The carrying of one’s cross—as Christ carried his for us—does not happen without saying, “My time, my money, my talents, my effort, even my body, are not my own.” This is sacrifice made faithfully. It may bring no reward in this life, other than the assurance that we are serving God and trusting him to redeem our work in his kingdom, and the hope that we will one day hear him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
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Jeff Hopper
October 9, 2019
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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