My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. (Proverbs 3:1-3, NASB)
I think many of us love to read instructional golf books. There is always a new twist and a new thought to fix our problem. This one may just offer the secret cure to playing golf well! The old pros used to say, “It is the search for perfection.” The dilemma? It never comes.
Golf Digest, for example, has been recycling the same information for more than 50 years, and each month the advice seems fresh. I remember a great quote from a golf magazine years ago about golf instruction: “Golf is the most taught and least learned human endeavor in the whole spectrum of doctrinology. If we taught sex they way we teach golf, the race would have died out years ago.”
As I play golf and do life and study in Links Fellowships, I learn a lot about the qualities of God though the stories of those in these groups. I am convinced that application is not just a good idea; it’s a necessity.
As we study God’s word, we always need to ask the question, “How does this apply to our life today? What can I learn from life today about these inspired words that were written so long ago?” The wisdom found here in the Bible is the lifeblood and foundation to living life well. It will always be relevant and pertinent to those who know God.
Here is one example. Some ask, “Do we really need to go to church? Can’t I worship God on the golf course or in my home?” Yet the scripture from Hebrews tells us: “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
We were studying the other day with some men in a Links Fellowship and the subject of church came to the forefront. My friend told this story about how much he had been blessed and helped the previous week by attending his church. He said, “It almost didn’t happen. We had decided to go to church this particular Sunday, and right before we were to leave my wife looked outside and said, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go. It is really raining.’ I responded, ‘We are going to church. If I can drive in the rain to get whiskey, I can go to church!’” They went and learned some other valuable lessons in the process.
Paul wrote in Romans 7:14: “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” At another study, a friend remarked, “It doesn’t take long for my mind to get in the wrong neighborhood.”
You see, the Bible is so relevant today because human nature has never changed. So how do we cope and apply the Bible to our life? Today’s verse from Proverbs is the start of the answer: Do not forget God’s teaching. Let your heart keep his commandments.
If we have a heart for God, he alone will give us the wisdom to do life. Daily.
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Randy Wolff
June 6, 2012
Copyright © 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday and is archived by passage and topic at www.linksplayers.com.