lucky

In the Army, as in sports, there’s an almost superstitious belief in luck. “Being lucky is as good as being good” is said a lot. Some people seem to “make their own luck.” In a serious discussion of the role of luck, I once heard a senior officer say that what looks like luck is just a very well-prepared person taking advantage of a very small window of opportunity.

Luck is a dirty word in Calvinist circles. We even had a pastor once who wouldn’t use the term “potluck” for church dinners. He called them “pot-providences.”

I thought about all that as I read three chapters detailing how the Promised Land was divided up and apportioned to the Israelites. Some tribes were assigned pieces of land, some requested them. But for seven tribes it was the so-called “luck of the draw.” 

Joshua 18:9-10: “So the men left and went through the land. They wrote its description on a scroll, town by town, in seven parts, and returned to Joshua in the camp at Shiloh. Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh in the presence of the Lord, and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions.”

Casting lots isn’t the game of chance it looks like to outsiders, not when it’s done like this. Our church chooses elders by voting to select a pool, and then drawing from a hat. We do this because we believe that the draw isn’t random; church leadership is God’s business and God guides the draw. Human politics are removed as a factor.

I believe that our selection process truly is controlled by God. And I ponder about so-called luck in the rest of my life. One the one hand, I believe in God’s providence, and I also believe he controls every atom and nano-particle in this world. On the other hand, I wonder think sometimes he simply allows natural laws of cause and effect and interaction to produce results. 

If that’s true, when that happens the purpose likely is to give me a chance to handle it, to prove my obedience in action. Surely being knocked around a little bit by life helps build my faith, and gives me context to become more holy. There has to be some room for free will; otherwise, I could justify my sin by saying God pre-ordained it.

It’s a complicated question and I’m sure the seminary-trained theologians out there have all kinds of lecture material they could dump on the topic. For me, it’s more interesting, and faith-forming, to muse at the mystery. Because in the end I discard luck and trust God.