“My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5, NIV)
DJ finally has his major.
It’s amazing how quickly even our most critical media sources will let an athlete rewrite his narrative. In one victorious afternoon, as many athletes have done before him, Dustin Johnson went from “mental weakness,” “inability to win the big one,” and “unable to shake the memory of past failures” to a champion with “fortitude,” “inner confidence,” and “equipped to shed even the most difficult circumstances, past and present.”
I know that every time I complain, it is because I have looked for satisfaction in something less than God’s fullness.Heaven forbid he stumble in the next one, because it won’t take long for those labels to turn, as Jordan Spieth’s did this spring when he crashed to defeat on Sunday’s back nine at the Masters.
What is this all about, this penchant of media and fans alike to add unbearable weight to championships unclaimed and deliver glory-laden accolades when the job gets done? It is, to borrow from author Paul Tripp, the pursuit of awe.
Not long ago, we considered the awe we are to give to God. It is the consideration of God’s unmatched nature and love-prompted gifts to us. It is the pleasure we take in the beauty of his creation. It is the honor we give him as the perfect ruler of the universe.
And it is too often exchanged for lesser awes.
Tripp has a name for this misplaced wonder; he calls it “awe-wrongedness.” And sadly, we fall into often when we watch sports, hoping to see something we have never seen before, even something we call greatness. But this greatness—like the chasing of the next million-dollar deal or the construction of our dream home or the arrangement of the perfect family vacation or the acceleration under the hood of the car we just brought home to our garage—is not the greatness of God. It doesn’t come close. And it draws our eyes in an inferior direction.
I can’t speak for your eyes, of course, only mine. Honestly, I know that every time I complain, it is because I have looked for satisfaction in something less than God’s fullness. When I see him as glorious as he truly is, I am satisfied. I am like the little camper who, after spending several days in the mountains and trees around Yosemite, told his counselor, “My eyes are full.”
I won’t stop enjoying golf and watching the very best players make their finest attempts to meet its severest demands, but I want to keep my eyes pointed in the right direction, where the wonder cannot wane and my awe is met with God’s awesomeness.
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Jeff Hopper
June 21, 2016
Copyright 2016 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.