The Chance Card

At our Monday night poker tournament, a man talked about living his life by "playing the cards as they're dealt" -- apparently as opposed to letting God rule his life.

Plenty of people do that. In fact, King Solomon wrote about how the dealing of cards can seem unfair at times:

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. -- Ecclesiastes 9:11

(For instance: how many people with Ph.D's have you seen holding up huge lottery checks?)

"Time and chance" have come in the way of many poker players' grand dreams. Ask anyone whose pocket Aces were cracked by someone holding two small diamonds and hitting a flush.

But we've also seen times (and recorded some here) where big poker comebacks happened seemingly without our even trying. We could dismiss those moments to "time and chance," or perhaps some sort of karma. But the person of faith sees a higher hand in it all.

Those the Lord blesses will inherit the land, but those he curses will be cut off.... The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them.... -- Psalm 37:22, 29-30

This salvation is in an ultimate sense, of course -- not necessarily winning a poker tournament, but gaining victory over an enemy called the "second death." That salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). Why take a chance of losing out on that?