The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:22-24, ESV)
The PGA Tour is restarting. Today is the first round of professional golf’s revised season with a 37-page document outlining the safety precautions. It feels weighty and I’m not even playing. Arriving on site for a tournament week always held a familiar rhythm for me. It wasn’t without angst, but there was a level of predictability. This week, the PGA players are experiencing a “new normal,” one that will require more energy to just show up, let alone to prepare and play.
Two quotes I read in a Golf Digest article by Dave Shedloski on June 1 stood out to me:
I’m looking forward to the human experiment that is about to unfold in front of us with golf as the laboratory,” Foley said. “I keep seeing this reference of a return to normalcy, and let me tell you, we aren’t ever going back to what we view as normal ever again. You can either get stuck in that rut of wanting to go back to the way things were, or you can adapt and move forward. It’s going to be fascinating to watch who adapts and figures it all out. (Sean Foley, swing instructor)
The main thing, insists Pickens, is for players to be open to change and enjoy the return to the thing they love to do. “You’ll want to be a little more self-aware than you were earlier,” he said. “You need to have a thankful attitude and an accepting attitude, but you have to have an intentional attitude to where you are doing what needs to be done.” (Dr. Mo Pickens, sport psychologist)
We won’t be going back to what once was comfortable, and we will need to adapt.Shedloski ends his article with these words: “In other words, a change of outlook is crucial to success going forward. But so is a commitment to not changing the things that work.”
While these words were written about tour pros returning to competition, we, too, are in a human experiment as each state slowly opens up. We won’t be going back to what once was comfortable, and we will need to adapt. Self-awareness is critical, as is finding gratitude and acceptance for whatever our own new norms will be. We will need to embrace a change of outlook.
Yet, there are some things that haven’t changed that we can remain committed to. The steadfast (hesed) love of God is still among us. His mercies are endless. With each new sunrise, God’s faithfulness sustains. We are the Lord’s possession and he is our inheritance regardless of any change or new normal here on earth. Remain intentional on these things!
I don’t know about you, but today I needed to be reminded that my hope is in the Lord.
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Tracy Hanson
June 11, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.