Find a penny pick it up…
What does luck have to do with anything? There must be something to it since so many people wish you good luck, call you a lucky duck, aren’t you a lucky one and you seem to have the luck of the Irish. May luck be on your side. People carry good luck charms around their neck, in their pocket or purse, in the car. I was always taught that if you saw a penny lying on the ground, and it was heads, pick it up because you would have good luck. But if it was tails showing, don’t pick it up because you would have bad luck.
You would never step on a sidewalk crack or walk under a step ladder or open an umbrella inside. Some people seem to always have good luck. Every gambling casino feeds off our superstition about luck. Just stay at it, your luck has got to change soon. Lady luck can be on your side or not. Lucky at cards, unlucky in love. Have you ever searched for four leaf clovers? We did all the time before TV. There were always thousands of three leaf clovers and you had to really be patient and search hard to find a four leaf one. But if you did, you were one lucky son of a gun. Ask any Irishman.
Lucky vs. blessed
So just what is luck? The Web defines it as ‘success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions’. An antonym would be ‘bad luck or misfortune’. So, from this we are to surmise that it is outside of our control. Fate, whoever she is, is with you or agin’ you. Good luck on your test, on your trip, on and on. Does appear that it is akin to wishful thinking with no substance to back it up. Faith does not seem to enter in. I find it interesting when I am leaving a place or meeting, most people will say good luck to you or best of luck to you.
But then there are those who pronounce ‘blessing’ on you as you’re leaving, or ‘be blessed’. I find this is a dead giveaway that they are a believer. So, what is the difference? Everything! The person is transferring something on you that is backed by faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11.1). Assurance, conviction; profound! Things hoped for, things not seen. Not ‘blind luck’. Our faith is based on the certainty that Jesus, the Christ, came, lived, died, rose, appeared and ascended. God the Father has ‘blessed’ us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. That is a fact. Read it in Ephesians 1.3.
Luck has nothing to do with it
It goes on to say, starting in verse 4 that “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
Do you see the substance of your faith? You don’t have to depend on luck or chance. When you are blessing another person, coming or going, you are essentially saying what is set forth in these verses. And when you ask someone or they ask you, how are you doing, and they or you say ‘blessed’, the same truth is present. There simply is no luck in a Christian’s life. I’ll rest my case with this truth. In the first confession of faith in the Heidelberg Catechism, these words ring out loud and clear. “He protects me so well, that without the will of my Father in heaven, not a hair can fall from my head.” Wow, our lives in Christ are not based on ‘pot luck’, but they are solely in the hands of a loving Father, who gave his only Son to give us assurance and conviction. Count on it.
