These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, NIV)
Last week I was viewing images of the field for the weekend’s PGA Tour event in Japan, the ZOZO Championship. I’ve never been to Japan and I don’t know what business ZOZO is in, but I recognized plenty of the men who would be playing. One of these was Satoshi Kodaira, a 30-year-old who has competed in 10 major championships through the years. But this time, what caught my attention were the words stacked on the shirt he was wearing in his profile picture:
KEEP
CALM
and
PLAY
GOLF
Surely you have seen many other variations on this meme, but when it comes to golf, all I could think was, Nice idea.
Although nearly all of us who play call golf our recreation, if you can somehow stay calm while trying to move the ball in one direction when your swing wants it to go in the other direction, you’re a better soul than most. For golfers, frustration leads to panic leads to mishap leads to despair.
OK, maybe it’s not that bad, but surely you have a sense like I did that Kodaira’s shirt was offering us a piece of impossible wisdom. As we might wryly say to one another, “Good luck with that.”
In the pages of Scripture, we find out who God is, how he has related and continues to relate to us, and how we are to relate to him.The Scriptures, or Bible, contain many words. If you do not believe these are the words of God, you can take and leave what you want. All good atheists live according to various pieces of biblical wisdom, whether or not they know or admit it. Too many good ideas from Scripture have taken cultural root to avoid them all!
But what the Bible offers is so much more than good ideas. It gives us more even than great wisdom. What the Bible gives us is the revelation of God. In the pages of Scripture, we find out who God is, how he has related and continues to relate to us, and how we are to relate to him. God shows himself to us through these words. These are not just more good ideas; these are the best ideas.
When Moses exhorted the people about their interaction with the words of God they had been given, he did not say that the end was for this to be an intellectual endeavor or even a conversational one. Oh yes, they were (and we are) to think about Scripture and talk about Scripture, but unto this end: that it “be on your hearts.” But of course, if these are the best of all ideas, where else would we want them to be?
—
Jeff Hopper
October 28, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
Photo by John-Mark Smith from Pexels