Luck

Luck is a four-letter word that has no place in our society. When I think about luck, I see it as being this unattainable artifact like Midas’ hand that will turn everything I touch to gold. People have dried up fortunes, lost loved ones, and even shriveled their lives in pursuit of luck. Other people use luck as a scapegoat to keep from accepting their own failures, calling it unlucky. Luck has been fantasized as being something wondrous and mystical, but in reality luck equates to laziness. Laziness that is too lazy to search for the reason behind the happening.

Luck does to people what television does to the old brain. When an older person watches T.V. instead of doing something intellectually stimulating his brain will stop making neurons, and neurons are what keeps a mind from being a vegetable. Likewise, luck, keeps a person from searching why; why did I get a flat tire (because I drove over that broken glass), why did I end up with such a great girlfriend (because I wooed her with everything I had, I put in the work), why did I strikeout in baseball (because I didn’t keep my eye on the ball). Instead of growing our understanding and furthering our minds so we can better understand something and then reproduce it, we call it luck and leave it at that, “I’m just lucky, I guess.”

The idea of “luck as a lady” is one way that our society has made luck to be something desirable. Why? Because if a person can get someone to believe and desire luck, then that same person can make money off of the believer. Namely, gambling. According to “savingadvice.com” the chance that a single person will win the lottery is about 120 million to 1! So why are rational, educated people still spending thousands of dollars in hopes to someday win? Because luck is sexy. Luck is attractive, and instead of seeing the lottery as a 1 in 120 million shot, they see it as trying to woo a fickle model, and hey, maybe someday she’ll take pity on you and give you a hand out.

Luck is not a clover. Must I get into superstition and charms? Four leaf clovers belong in lovely fields or in my cereal, not in my pocket when I go in for the big job interview. This idea that luck, , can dwell in certain special charms is both another scheme to make money and another lie to give an object the credit that something, or somebody else deserves. My theology speaks for me in this case: I believe in a God who gives every good gift. This doesn’t mean this same God doesn’t give the bad gifts, but I do believe that “every good gift comes down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17) But when I give a charm or the concept of luck the credit for my good gifts what am I giving God? Say I gave my nephew a gift for his birthday, and instead of thanking me and believing I gave it to him, he believes and thanks a picture of a cow. When his next birthday comes along, he hopes in the cow and relies on it to give him what he wants. Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? Yet people do this with horoscopes all the time. Luck is just like this.

The idea of providence is much like fate, or destiny. Except that providence implies a being bent on protecting and providing for me. This being, who I know to be God, is not random or fickle like luck is, but He is purposeful and active in His providence. Assuming God where a die, and I were to roll this die, the number that would come up would not be random, but would be destined to come up for a purpose long before the earth was created. The depth and magnitude of providence and pre-destiny, goes much further than the random whimsical nature of luck. When looking at luck from this perspective it seems so frail and childish, as if those who believe in luck are ignorant of the big picture much like the child that believes Santa Claus fills his stocking. Not that I understand God, or His ways, but I believe in His omniscience. Faith in that way is different than luck. If my nephew would have faith that I would give him a good gift for his birthday, he know who it was that gives him the gift, and the thanks and glory, if you will, is placed rightly.

Luck is not only whimsical, ignorant and deceptive, but it is also an idol. It’s true. Luck takes the place of God. A person who believes fully in luck, has nothing to give to God because luck steals what God is due. Luck didn’t give mankind breath or sustain our life every day, yet we call ourselves lucky when we escape death, giving the glory of our life to a dead ideal. May we give credit where credit is due, and choose to not believe in something because our culture tells us to. If we are to believe in something, let it be proven, unlike the concept of a lucky rabbit’s foot, that ironically was extremely unlucky for the rabbit.