They Say A Laugh A Day
And it is written in scripture A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine.
I get more items in my inbox than I want, need, or is even fathomable. In short, I don’t know where 90% of it comes from or even why it finds its way to me.
However, I do subscribe to a few things and today’s message from Seth Godin had to do with luck. Luck, he told us was not a strategy. In Mr. Godin’s words about how life happens, for instance in the case of the old fart who smokes, drinks, and lives to one hundred and we think: Perhaps they did x, y, and z, and then got lucky. As storytelling creatures, it’s natural to assume that x, y, or z had something to do with it. But maybe it didn’t, you know, living to one hundred was just short of a miracle for them.
So, luck in the true sense can work both ways. If your sitting in your living room and the airplane above your house jettisons its luggage and it comes down to fall through your roof into your living room…well, that sort of luck isn’t helpful.
On the other hand, if you win a 2 million dollar settlement, insurance patches your house good as new, and no one is hurt that sort of luck could work the other way. But I’ve lived in my house for years and not had that sort of thing happen, nor do I foresee it happening so counting on that as a retirement plan is really a poor strategy.
All strategy aside, my mother had a saying that has more truth to it than I would like, it was simply, figure long, figure wrong. This translates into you can strategy till you’re blue in the face but that doesn’t mean it will be helpful. Things don’t always turn out the way you would expect.
As I’ve shared before I’ve had to resort to plan B (C, D, or more) so many times in my life I know about the phrase Well, that didn’t go the way I’d planned. Yet, as I reflect on my life there are several scriptures that come to mind.
For those who say there is no such thing as luck —
Ecclesiastes 9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
we agree the scriptures call it time and chance…
Don’t stress about things you have no power to change. Change what you can and leave the rest to God:
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
Proverbs 15:15 All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. 16 Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.
