If you are wise, you are wise for yourself,
And if you scoff, you alone will bear it. (Proverbs 9:12, NASB)
Some of the wisest golf advice ever given to me was not by a pro—and I have taken lessons from several—but by my brother-in-law. I took up the game in mid-life and had been playing for about three years when I had a chance to play with him. He encouraged me to take some lessons, giving me this long-range advice: “We take golf lessons, not so we can see an immediate improvement in our game, though that may happen. We take golf lessons so we can understand the golf swing, why the ball goes where it goes, what a good swing path is versus a bad one, etc. This foundational understanding and knowledge then enables us to make on-course corrections to improve our round.”
Ah yes, making mid-round corrections to improve our round. Sounds so simple. Just not sure why I don’t choose to tap into everything I have learned about how to play the game. I was playing nine with a friend yesterday and playing well. I was two over par through five holes and beginning to tell myself (this should have been the alarm) that I could play this game. I’ve got this. Then, as the saying goes, the wheels came off. As I look back over holes six, seven, and eight, there was not one shot that I haven’t hit dozens of times before. Still, it was not pretty, and it took me until the ninth to straighten things out with a birdie.
But wisdom will be there as well, and she will guide us into God’s truth if we so desire.
There are lots of reasons a round can go sour, but probably the main one, as in everyday life, has to do with our thought processes. Not coincidentally, Scripture has much to say about that. Paul wrote about the battle going on inside of us in Romans 7 and Ephesians 6, to name a couple of places. But the battle to control our thoughts, to make good choices, and to live wisely has been with us far longer than just New Testament days.
In Proverbs 9 we read that wisdom “calls from the tops of the heights of the city: ‘Whoever is naïve, let him turn in here!’” Unfortunately, folly also calls out to us. “She sits at the doorway of her house, on a seat by the high places of the city, calling to those who pass by, who are making their paths straight, ‘Whoever is naïve, let him turn in here.’” Notice who folly goes after—those “who are making their paths straight.” Wisdom says a few other things, as does folly, but you get the point. We have choices, and folly would really like us to follow her.
Today we face decisions all day long. A lot of those decisions will be easy—like the first five holes of my round. But then the harder choices come, and we will search for answers. Folly will be there, as will our enemy, the devil himself. Both are interested in not only derailing us but literally destroying us. But wisdom will be there as well, and she will guide us into God’s truth if we so desire.
David says it this way in Psalm 145:18, “The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.”
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Bob Kuecker
July 29, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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