“What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me.” (Jeremiah 6:20, NIV)
You hear it talked about on many golf telecasts: the trailer.
There is the trailer behind the scenes of every TV sports broadcast, but the trailer the golf commentators are talking about is the one where tour pros go when they need their equipment repaired or replaced.
Now imagine if a player discovers a crack in his driver at the end of round. He heads to his manufacturer’s trailer to explain the problem and get an exact replacement. But rather than hearing the player’s need, the technician in the trailer says, “Hey, we’ve got these really exceptional brand new wedges you need to see.”
The player responds, “Great, but what I need—what I must have—is a driver. Let’s just get me a new driver.”
We could stretch out this scenario to absurdity’s end, but you know where the story is headed: if the player keeps getting the redirect from the tech who is certain that a wedge will satisfy the player’s need for a driver, the player is going to let the tech have it in so many words or simply walk away and find someone else who’s interested in what he really wants.
Now if you have already coupled today’s Scripture passage with this vignette, you may be stumbling into a Nathan and David aha moment. This story may be not about a golfer and his manufacturer, but about God and his supposed follower. For through the mouth of Jeremiah, God expressed his displeasure with the runaround he was receiving from those who served him according to their wishes and not his. They made their own self-serving choices then tried to butter him up with a pile of “fancies.”
If you’re familiar with the work of Gary Chapman, you might find yourself recognizing that God has a love language and his people were not speaking it! Above all, God wants your heart. Through Isaiah, God had lamented that while his people had his name on their lips, “their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). Jeremiah spoke the same line back to the Lord (Jeremiah 12:2).
In the same way that we can give material gifts to those friends and family who don’t otherwise receive our deep love, we can play games with God, ignoring what he really wants from us—obedience sparked by a heart all his—and giving him instead a host of religious trinkets. The trouble with playing games with God is that he is still everywhere: under the table, up our sleeve, behind our back. He knows what we think he doesn’t, and he discerns our true heart on the basis of everything he sees. No wonder the only way to really honor him is to give him our all.
—
Jeff Hopper
September 11, 2012
Copyright 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.