A wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust. (Proverbs 21:22, NIV)
One of the pleasures of our game comes when we travel. We love our home courses, but we know the variety that’s out there. So when we get a chance to play across town or across the country and experience a different challenge, we try to take it. At least I do!
Similarly, I am blessed when I get to travel from place to place and sit in on Links Fellowships. They’re all different, even when they’re exploring the same Scripture passages and working through the same study questions. The main themes hold steady, but the personal applications make each Fellowship unique.
One Fellowship I love to visit is the one that meets at La Quinta CC, which is one of the courses hosting The American Express this week in the California desert. The courses in this event’s rota have changed many times, but La Quinta CC has hung in there all the way back to the Bob Hope days. In fact, the first interaction I had with Tour pros as part of the Links Players family came in the early 1980s, when I sat next to David Peoples at dinner at LQCC and interviewed David Ogrin for a column in my college newspaper. (And somehow I’m still just 39!)
The wise one must rush in, scaling the city wall, and doing all he or she can to break the grip of what does not matter, the chokehold of other gods.That old clubhouse is long gone, lost to an earthquake’s shaking. But each Thursday morning, men congregate in the front room of the new clubhouse and study God’s word. They meet year-round, but in season, as they are now, you find yourself sitting among 50 men or more. The room is packed. And most weeks the teaching comes from Links Players president Jeffrey Cranford.
I was there last Thursday when Jeffrey picked up on a long progression of teachings from the Proverbs. And this time, he spoke of wisdom and might.
Jeff’s own story and calling are actually captured fully in Proverbs 21:22. He is a Bible teacher made wise by the equipping of the Holy Spirit, and he has spent 25 years addressing the “strongholds” that captivate those in places of power or prestige.
Behind the walls of country clubs are men and women whose security comes from their possessions, their positions, and their connections. But one whose wisdom comes from the Lord recognizes the empty, temporal nature of these “advantages.” They coax an unwitting soul to cling to them but leave that soul to die. Here is where the wise one must rush in, scaling the city wall, and doing all he or she can to break the grip of what does not matter, the chokehold of other gods.
Are you wise like this? Or are you clinging to worldly strongholds? Maybe you need to raid your own city. Maybe you need to tear chains from a dying friend. Wisdom beats strength, but only if we actively engage the former to defeat the latter. And wisdom brings life—the life of Christ—to the city of the dead.
—
Jeff Hopper
January 14, 2020
Copyright 2020 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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