{"id":1821,"date":"2022-07-22T10:40:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T14:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1821"},"modified":"2022-07-22T10:40:18","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T14:40:18","slug":"bet-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/22\/bet-on-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Bet on It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


\u201cYou\u2019ve got to ask yourself one question: \u2018Do I feel lucky?\u2019 Well, do you, punk?\u201d
(Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry<\/em>)
\u00a0
San Francisco\u2019s famously unhinged police inspector isn\u2019t typically a source of theological insight.\u00a0 But his quotable quote spotlights our culture\u2019s fascination with what can only be described as one of the most unreliable sources of human guidance: luck.\u00a0
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People who think luck is a real force with real power often make strange decisions.\u00a0
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They wait until their \u201clucky numbers\u201d come up to make significant purchases.\u00a0 They may pay special attention to particular colors or days of the month.\u00a0 And of course, they rely on luck when it comes to placing bets.\u00a0 A few years ago, Connecticut rolled out an advertisement for its state-sponsored lottery.\u00a0 It featured a made-up story about a man who always played the same lucky numbers but for some reason declined to do so just one time \u2013 and that, of course, was the week he would have won millions.\u00a0 The commercial basically said, \u201cYou\u2019d better not ever quit playing.\u201d\u00a0 Critics screamed that this sent a singularly destructive message, since it cynically reinforced the psychology of addiction.\u00a0
\u00a0
Nobody won the Mega Millions Jackpot drawing earlier this week, which means that tonight\u2019s drawing will be worth something in the neighborhood of $630 million.\u00a0 What would you do with that kind of money?\u00a0 Millions of people are hoping to find out.\u00a0 Perhaps their whole lives have been leading up to this very day.\u00a0 Six lucky numbers will render irrelevant everything that has gone before.
\u00a0
So, you have to ask yourself one question: \u201cDo I feel lucky?\u201d\u00a0 Well, do you?\u00a0
\u00a0
In truth, you have far better odds of finding that classic good-luck charm, a four-leafed clover.\u00a0
\u00a0
They\u2019re not as rare as you might think.\u00a0 Swiss researchers recently examined 5.7 million clovers.\u00a0 Let\u2019s pause here and acknowledge that whatever these researchers were paid, it wasn\u2019t enough.\u00a0 They discovered that for every 5,076 three-leafed clovers, there was one with four leaves.\u00a0 There are even five-leafed clovers waiting to be found, and someone in Japan discovered a clover with a whopping 56 leaves back in 2009.\u00a0
\u00a0
An old folk tradition assigns different attributes to each leaf of a four-leafed clover.\u00a0 The first leaf stands for faith.\u00a0 The second leaf stands for hope.\u00a0 The third leaf stands for love.\u00a0 If this sounds vaguely familiar, you\u2019re remembering the apostle Paul\u2019s powerful words in I Corinthians 13:13: \u201cIn the end there are three great lasting qualities \u2013 faith, hope, and love.\u00a0 But the greatest of these is love.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
What does the fourth leaf stand for?\u00a0 That\u2019s the leaf that brings you luck.\u00a0 Which is why, according to the old stories, you should keep a four-leafed clover in your purse or pocket.\u00a0
\u00a0
But luck is not a strategy for living.\u00a0
\u00a0
Luck has no reality.\u00a0 It has neither substance nor power.\u00a0 Relying on luck is essentially deciding not to decide<\/em> to live intentionally and wisely.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Faith, hope, and love, on the other hand, are things we can actually choose to live out.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to bet on lucky numbers or wait for lucky days to embrace hope over cynicism, love over neglect, and trust over worry. \u00a0\u00a0In other words, we don\u2019t need to be lucky to live a great life.\u00a0
\u00a0
So, what do you think?\u00a0 Is it possible that your whole life has been leading up to this very day?\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Absolutely.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it\u201d (Psalm 118:24).\u00a0
\u00a0
In fact, you can bet your life on that.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to ask yourself one question: \u2018Do I feel lucky?\u2019 Well, do you, punk?\u201d(Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry)\u00a0San Francisco\u2019s famously unhinged police inspector isn\u2019t typically a source of theological insight.\u00a0 But his quotable quote spotlights our culture\u2019s fascination with what can only be described as one of the most unreliable sources of human guidance: luck.\u00a0\u00a0People who think luck is… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[475,351],"class_list":["post-1821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-luck","tag-providence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1823,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821\/revisions\/1823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}