The Devotional - 104 - Golf Balls

Thought for the Day – 104 – Golf Balls?

 

Proverbs 5:1-23 – All pathways of life without the knowledge of God are a choice of ignorance; all ignorance leads to a system of dead end streets. There is only one Creator, His name is Jesus; His path is justice, peace and love. It is the path of a shining Light that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:10-19; the way of the ignorant is wickedness and darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.

 

Comments and challenges

The faith of young people in their parents is a most precious attribute, it is fragile but it is durable as well. I reckon this faith to be much like a golf ball. Hold a fresh new golf ball just above your head and drop it on a solid flat surface, it will bounce back to the height of just under your chin. After knocking it around the golf course for eighteen holes, it should still bounce from that flat surface to just under your chin. The abuse of hitting the ball and sending it sometimes out of sight means little to your faithful golf ball.

Toss the ball in your bag and forget about it for a year; you know the season is over and next season you open a brand new package of balls that came to you at Christmas and as you come to the water hole you rummage around in your bag for a water ball you find the one you used last year. A little beat up now; but it looks okay for this shot over the water. You hit it and you hear the results; splash! You missed your landing zone by a yard are two. Six months of ignoring your ball of last year causes it to lose ten yards of distance. Leave it alone for two years and you lose twenty yards.

I wonder if we get the picture I am seeking to paint. You can relationally knock a child around for many years and his or her faith will be as solid as a rock. Ignore that child for a year, two years or ten to fifteen as we do today and the faith in that child in you the parent will fail. Faith is the only tool that leads to obedience, or to be blunt: with no faith, no obedience will not be found. In chapter 6 of Ephesians the apostle Paul speaks to children and says; “obey your parents in the LORD for this is right” if mom and dad are not present within the household and God is not present too, what or who is there for them to obey?

The golf ball is not much good without a golf club to make it go the distance needed and you may be saying. (Great now I can treat my child like a mean disciplinarian!) ABSOLUTELY NOT; back to the golf ball; if you are ignorant of the knowledge of how to play golf and if you have not trained yourself in hitting the ball correctly you will wrongly abuse ball and cause you to lose it. So to it is with children if you are ignorant of God who gave that child to you.

Notice Psalm 127:1 – Unless the LORD builds the house; they labor in VAIN who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Go ahead and READ this psalm and while at it; WEEP since our heritage is lost in the WILDERNESS because we have been IGNORANT of God over the last sixty to seventy years in our HOMES, in our TOWNS, in our CITIES and in our NATION. SHAME on US of the U.S. of A.

We need to fall down on our FACE and seek MERCY and FORGIVENESS and maybe God will deliver us from our crumbling and pitiful national estate. Our political leaders today are the abused children raised by unprincipled fathers and mothers over the past decades as mentioned above. Therefore we should not expect them to perform in conservative lawmaking creating good national economy, good national morality and good national prosperity.

And have you noticed; that is if we read the Holy Bible? In Romans 13:1-14 the apostle Paul does not suggest that we submit to government authority, he under the power of God the Holy Spirit commands that we submit. In addition in verses 8 through 10 he adds that we are to love one another; we are not to commit adultery, murder, stealing, lying or coveting sins, these sins are the result of being ignorant of God.

So this command goes beyond the believing in God community. It is a command to you and I who believe in Christ and live in the community of abused children. We are not to mingle within the realm of their sin; we are to put on the LORD Jesus Christ and make no provision to live for the gratification of the flesh and we are to point them to the target. And in using the right CLUB, aim them to the CROSS. That club Romans 13:11-14, praise God if you are already doing this and shame on you if you are NOT!                                 http://biblia.com/bible/nkjv/