What do these poker players have in common? They've all won the World Series of Poker Main Event. (Jacobson did it only last year.) Yet they're all out of this year's Main Event, failing to survive their first day of play in Las Vegas.
With more than 6,400 players competing for the 2015 title, the odds of repeating as champion are ridiculously small. That's why it was noteworthy last year when one man reached the final table for the second year in a row.
The players we listed above are still well-known in poker circles. But the worldwide attention that can come from winning the Main Event is fleeting - lasting no more than eight months, from a "November Nine" to the next summer. Sad as it sounds, our lives are like that as well.
Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure. - Job 14:1-2Trouble even can come to Main Event winners. One wound up being battered in a home invasion - and only in researching this post did we learn his stolen WSOP bracelet wound up in a waste bin. Given that fact, how should we live?
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, with moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, were moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. - Matthew 6:19-20
Jesus is using poetic language to indicate we should focus on eternal things - things beyond this life. Those treasures will have a payday sometime in the future:
Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. - Revelation 22:12
Play your poker well - but do other things along with it, that might earn you a rich reward from God. He promises the ultimate payoff of all.
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