There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12, NASB)
Imagine this: You have five, brand-new-to-golf, 30-year-old students on the range and they want to learn the game of golf their way. No instruction, no tips, no drills, just hitting balls until they become good. On the other end of the range, you have five, brand-new-to-golf, 30-year-old students who would like help with their games, learning the fundamentals of the swing and short game.
One month goes by. Whose chances do you like? Just like golf is not a game of perfect, it is also not a game of natural. Some parts of the game have to be learned: the grip, posture, weight transfer, and ball position to name a few. There is no way Arnie, Jack, Tiger, or Annika first gripped the club the correct way without being taught.
Now, in the game of life, we have five 30-year-olds who would like to live their own way. No need to give them instruction on how to lead their lives; they will figure it out. On the other hand, you have five 30-year-olds who would like some counsel. Something is missing and they recognize that those things their parents warned them about are actually coming true. They have tried it their way, and it’s not working out. You cannot do whatever you would like and not suffer consequences. So they start attending church or a Bible study their friend has invited them to.
Again, time goes by, maybe a year. Whose chances do you like? Making sense of the world doesn’t come naturally, it comes supernaturally. This is how C.S. Lewis described it in Mere Christianity:
The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become…. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires…. What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils…. I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
Where does that leave us? Hopefully you learned long ago that you need help with your golf game—taking a few lessons, becoming a student of the game, practicing, or reading some of the several great books on golf.
It terms of your life, you might be a spiritual scratch player. Maybe you are new to the Christian life. The fact that you are receiving and reading the Links Daily Devotional means you are in the game. God has provided his Word, and we have multiple ways to engage with it: through reading the Bible itself, through books and DVDs that help us understand it more fully, and through small group discussions and church sermons. Our prayer at Links Players is that you will stay the course, being careful not to do what may seem natural, and instead doing “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute” (Philippians 4:8).
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Bill Euler
April 24, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.