Playing the hand you were dealt

 

I’m not a card shark by anyone’s definition.  When I was growing up, I had very little use for setting around a table and lifting only a card when I could be outside playing basketball or some other physical activity.  But after seeing Pastor Warren’s spot on Oprah, I wanted take up the game of poker.  I wanted to try and figure out my life based on the hand I was dealt. 

When we sit around the card table of life, we have the most trustworthy dealer available.  Our God serves as the dealer, the officiator of our lives.  He has the last word, literally, in how the game is played and what cards are in the deck.  As He deals the cards, we begin to build our winning hand, our prosperous life of leisure and comfort so that we are assured a winning hand, and ultimately, a victorious game.    According to the rules of the game, we can ask for new cards, hoping that this will improve our hand.  We will often break the rules of the game and grab a card from under the table and place it in our hand.  This card was never part of the original deck, and did not come from our dealer, our awesome God.  But we feel that we needed the card to have a winning hand, therefore it will be ok to take from under the table. 

 

It’s when we take the card from under the table and place it in our hand that we have now changed the composition of the deck.  God did not deal us this card.  It did not come from His deck.  We have now changed the game, and the deck being used by everyone at the table.  The ripple effects can be felt around the table because now the other players have no knowledge of your transgression.  The remaining players are still in the game, but now the deck has been changed. 

God knows that you have changed what He originally dealt. God knows that you have changed the rules for everyone at the table because now the ripple effects from your breaking of the rules can be felt.  God knows, because He has already seen what you would do given the opportunity to build a “winning hand,” but in His eyes it’s a “sinning hand.”  

In life, we all have a winning hand to begin with.  We all have this opportunity to trust the dealer to deal the cards in a manner that allows us to build this winning hand.  But our greed takes over, our desire to always be comfortable, to always have more, to always be winning, and we destroy the hand we were dealt.  

The trick to the game is in trusting the dealer, our God, to give us the winning hand.  If we choose do this, He will provide us with a game winning strategy, but the key is trusting, and playing the hand we were dealt.  “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.  Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.  When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord.” Jeremiah 29:11-13(NRSV) There are a couple of things we have to note about this passage.  When God says He has a plan, it’s His plan, not ours to manipulate.  When God says His plan is “to give you a future with hope,” He means it.  We have to avoid the temptation to change the game (His plan) by sliding a card from under the table, because when we do this, we change the game for everyone playing.  This is where our free will can deceive us.  We want to trust ourselves to make these game altering decisions, allowing us to get ahead in life, allowing us to have more of life, and allowing us to have a better hand than the player next to us. 

This is also when the Dealer steps in and calls attention to the warped deck.  The hands are now different for everyone because we have chosen to change the rules by introducing our own card, or our own plan for our own lives, and refusing to play the hand God has dealt.  Do me a favor and take a good look at your poker hand.  God may have dealt you cards that you can’t seem to make a winning hand from.  Refuse the temptation to make it a sinning hand and simply play the cards you were dealt.  God will make sure we all win in the end, but we have to play fair in order to stay in the game. 

“in the world, not of the world”