Chances Are....

For some reason, poker never came up  Nor did other "games of chance" you might play in a casino.  But we were drawn to a public radio series this past week on "Risk and Reason" - examining how statistical probability plays a factor in many things we do.

One basic example is the weather forecast.  How do you prepare for a "20-percent chance of rain"?  Your answer may say a lot about you.  Let's translate that to some examples at a Texas Hold 'em poker table:

* If you have a "gutshot" straight draw - such as 5-6-_-8-9 - your chances of making it with a 7 on the turn are 4 in 47, or 8.5%.  The chance of making the straight on the river is actually slightly better, because there's one fewer mystery card.  It becomes 4 in 46, or 8.7%.

* If you have four cards to a flush after the flop, the chance of completing it on the turn is 19.1% (9 remaining cards in a suit out of 47).  On the river, it's 19.6%.

(Yet a flush beats a straight at showdown.... but that's another topic completely.)

Good poker players constantly figure the odds and probability in their heads.  Yet the NPR series showed if you avoid casinos because you don't like "games of chance" -- sorry.  You live in a world where the figuring of probability and chance abound.

If you're looking for a sure thing, consider this: 100 percent of all human beings who lived in the 18th century died.  And unless something unusual happens, so will you.  So will we.

But believers in God and Jesus Christ keep a "long shot" in mind -- that something unusual can happen.  In fact, the Bible offers it as hope beyond this life.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel  and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. - I Thessalonians 4:16-17

Did you notice the apostle Paul wrote those verses somewhat in the present tense?  "We who are still alive...."  From all we know, Paul eventually died -- but he had that "long shot" hope.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet shall sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. - I Corinthians 15:51-52

The chances of hitting a straight flush card on the river (if you have the other four) is only two percent.  Believers in Jesus should live each day in faith, keeping the "chance" in mind that God could prove His word true and send Jesus back to Earth at any time.  That will be hitting the sweetest "jackpot" of all.