Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105, ESV)
I knew at impact. The one shot I needed to avoid headed into the penalty area. I grumbled my way to the green, took my drop, fluffed a chip, and two-putted. Self-contempt spewed out of my mouth as I grabbed my ball from the cup for a double bogey.
I had fought hard all day even though I wasn’t hitting it my best. A spot in the 2024 US Senior Women’s Open is on the line.
“I’m such a failure,” sled off my tongue as I collected my wedges and towel.
Susan, one of the competitors in my group, spun around and firmly said, “No, you are not, and you know it.”
I met Susan and her husband, Tom, the day before as we waited for our practice round. They knew who I was because they are Links Daily Devotional readers.
More often than I want to admit, I tend to believe I am stronger alone and distance myself from others when faced with challenges. But God knew I needed reminders of his love by putting a few other believers in my path for this qualifying event.
Along with Susan and Tom, the head golf professional, Dan and I share a mutual Christian friend in Michigan, and he, too, reads the Daily Devotional.
Have you noticed many of the miracles in the Gospels happened because the people who were healed got in the path of Jesus? The woman with the issue of blood said, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well (Matthew 9:21).” The ten lepers met Jesus near a village and lifted their voices from a distance to him (Luke 17:11-19). Other miracles happened because one person got into the path of another like the Roman officer asking Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant (Matthew 8:5-13).
The morning of the qualifying round, I wrote this on a post-it note and stuck it in my yardage book, “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. Oh God, in you I trust…Make me to know your ways, O Lord; Teach me your paths (Psalm 25: 1-2a, 4).”
God knew my path for the day; I did not. I put myself in the path of encouragement through God’s Word by reading the above scriptures when discouragement and frustration seeped in. I believe God put Susan and Tom in my path to be his voice of love and truth in my time of self-contempt.
Whether I gained one of the three spots into the US Senior Women’s Open or not, Susan’s words are true, “Always remember whose you are, even in the adversity the game will surely give.”
Despite the double bogeys life might give us, let us look to put ourselves in Jesus’s path. You never know how he will reveal himself.
(I did make it and will be playing in the Championship August 1-4)
Prayer: Lord, thank you that You are the lamp and light of my path. Help me today to keep my eyes focused on Jesus.