It is good to praise the LORD…to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night. (Psalm 92:1-2, NIV)
What you think about before a round of golf and after are rarely the same. You may go into a round with a feeling of confidence—or not. You may come away from a round with a sense of accomplishment—or not.
Of course, we might question whether these are the right thoughts at all. Maybe we should replace the feeling of confidence with a routine approach to our shots; maybe we should swap out that sense of accomplishment with a reflection on enjoyment. Either way, how we start and how we end a round have much to do with what we bring to the game and how we leave it.
From the looks of Psalm 92, perhaps the same can be said for each day. How do you arise? How do you retire?
The psalmist, though with a poetic pen, gave us some insight into a practice of meditation, and I like the way it lines out. When we praise the Lord as we start and end our days, we do well to begin by proclaiming his love and close by proclaiming his faithfulness.
Without God’s love in mind, there is a good chance that you will open your morning with a mountain of pressure. There are the calendar and the to-do list, the appointments and the possible snags—what if that so-and-so (or just any so-and-so) walks into your office in the busiest moments your morning?
But if we start with the love of God, even proclaiming it aloud so our own ears can hear it and our spouse can offer up a hearty “Amen!,” we build a layer of protection against the beat-down the world has in store for us. We recall Romans 8: “[Nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And at day’s end, when we look back on all the trouble that did confront us, all the mundane tasks we had to power through, all the wicked worries that never materialized, we can shout a loud thanksgiving: “God, you are so faithful! You have walked me through another amazing day!”
—
Jeff Hopper
June 21, 2013
Copyright 2013 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.