Thank your lucky stars

As I sit this morning eating my lucky charms cereal, I noticed that St. Patrick's Day is nearly here! Young minds wander to thoughts of leprechauns, 4 leafed clovers, and wearing green to avoid pinch-hungry friends. The holiday itself traces roots back to the Patron Saint of Ireland who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. I find it particularly interesting that over the centuries the holiday has been reduced to a sort of “luck worship”. If I can just find a genetically morphed piece of yard weed (clover) or a two foot tall man in green clothes (Ross Perot?), I will have “good luck”. This “good luck” will bring me the only thing that can possibly make me happy...a pile of gold. Given this chain of reasoning, wealth/happiness equals luck

Where does bad luck come from then? Is it strictly people who find the wrong number of leaves on their clover or, by default, must have mugged the little green guy? My conclusion is that the concept of luck as a whole presupposes the lack of a bigger plan that we are all a part of. If there is a reason why we all live and why things happen as they do, it is easy to see that this plan could be bigger than individual people's luck. Some think you “make your luck” by working hard. Others think God must not like them because of a propensity toward bad luck.

I have come to believe that we live in a world that has been corrupted by disobeying God and His Word. Working hard no more guarantees good fortune than not working hard guarantees bad fortune. We all know people who are undeservedly rich or inexplicably poor. Hard work is to be appreciated, valued, and honored, but not in expectation of a guaranteed success. Not working hard is non-biblical stealing from your employer, but it also does not guarantee failure in life.

The good news is there is more to life than luck. We live in a world with a purpose. Our purpose is not to amass riches, to be able to bench press twice our body weight, or to free every animal from the dog catcher's evil grasp. Our purpose in life is to glorify the Creator of the sun, moon, and lucky stars. He deserves to be given credit for all good things and to be sought for help when times are hard. We are so very blessed to not get what we deserve (To be ground up like the powder in the bottom of a box of Lucky Charms) and get what we don't deserve (The keys to the Kingdom)! Sometimes it is not easy to see that luck is irrelevant, but the promise of God remains “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28b KJV).
The end of the rainbow does not take you to a pot of gold, it takes you to the cross.