Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse… whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. (Proverbs 2:12-15, NIV)
Depending on which team you were rooting for in yesterday’s Super Bowl, you’ve woken up this morning satisfied or disappointed. Or maybe you’ve just woken up feeling full from all the nachos and wings!
In my love of sports, I’ve discovered one thing to be true in terms of being a fan: Nothing is in my control. What the coaches do, what the players do, what the officials do, what the weather does—I can only watch from afar to see what happens.
The same is not true when we play. Consider this: We have all walked up to a tee box where the markers seem to have been set up by a sleepy or hungover greenskeeper. One marker is set well ahead of another, creating an angle that points straight out of bounds. I can’t control that. But I can control whether I aim in the direction those markers are pointing or the direction I really should go.
Look around you, not to fall in love with everything you see, but to recognize whether the direction you’re headed is God’s direction.Now, I hope you hardly need me to help you connect the dots to life. We live in a world where most of the markers are pointing us in bankrupt directions. Where words are spoken from wicked motives. Where perversion sells, so it’s OK. Where darkness shrouds unrighteousness, as it has always done. It’s not a pretty place to grow up or grow old, but you’d never know that from the way it’s sold to us.
Solomon was not fooled. He’d seen too much of life with the eyes of wisdom God freely gave to him. Oh, he was not perfect, but perhaps that gave him all the more reason to issue words of warning: “Son, you don’t want what I have seen.”
We have control over whether we will live like Solomon or like those he observed. Will we line up out of bounds and wonder why we keep running headlong into trouble? Or will we take a good look at the Lord and reset our bearings according to his true north?
“Wisdom will save you,” Solomon wrote, and that should be all the endorsement we need. Look around you, not to fall in love with everything you see, but to recognize whether the direction you’re headed is God’s direction. If it isn’t, pray the prayer of James: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5).
Setting your course correctly is a decision you won’t regret—and it’s something you can control.
—
Jeff Hopper
February 3, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.