Recently, I've been trying to remove the word “luck” from my vocabulary. I am not “lucky” – I am BLESSED. The events in my life are not random happenstance, but are loving gifts of my heavenly Father and all he does to guide, guard and care for me.
Upon closer inspection, the seemingly innocuous concept of luck is a very non-Christian way of viewing the events in our lives. Ancient Romans worshiped luck in the form of the goddess Fortuna (and the Greeks had Tyche) from which we now get our word for fortune or fortunate. Luck can be good or bad and puts us at the mercy of an unknown force acting upon us in a way that is both inconsiderate of our lives and inconsequential of anything we may or may not do.
Blessings, however, are a very different concept from that of luck. God is the supreme ruler of this world and has all things in His control. One of my very favorite Bible verses is Romans 8:28 (TNIV) “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” and later, in verse 31, “...If God is for us, who can be against us?”. How then are we to believe that anything happens to us randomly? Even what may not seem a blessing now, may be one later when time and retrospect allow you to see your growth as a Christian. God has a plan for us and compels us by the events in our lives to be His children and follow the path He has laid out for us.
If God in Heaven is my Father, then I am His daughter. Who among us would allow randomness to lead our children? Who would set their child on a path that leads to nowhere? So much more so is our Lord. (Matthew 7:9 - 11) He is the God of everything and He makes every day a blessing for me.
So true Erica! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kenya! This came out of hearing someone say, "With my luck..." and I thought, "Really? You have a home, a beautiful, healthy family, a good job...look at at what you have!"
ReplyDeleteI just read a post on another blog this morning about this - lucky or blessed. I, too, do not like to use the word lucky so much. I have, but prefer not to. I do tell people 'good luck' though. Good luck at the interview, good luck at the dr, etc. What do you think about that? Is there something else we could say instead of 'good luck' that would represent our Christianity? Some comments made on the above blog I mentioned were that being blessed is a state of mind. A Christian knows he's blessed, considers his blessings as given from God; whereas a non-Christian would think it's all about luck. Know what I'm trying to say? Anyway, great post!
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