Less Belief in Luck, More Belief in God

(This is yesterday's blog post. How did this not get posted yesterday?)

Blogging about piano tips Teresa taught me reminded me of another insight she shared with me that day. I hope she'll forgive me for sharing it without getting her permission first. The basic idea is that the word "lucky" could, in almost every instance I can think of, be fittingly replace with the word "blessed."

There are some people who don't believe in luck. Such people may believe in fate - that some things are just destined to happen no matter what. Others say that there is no luck because everything that happens is a result of someone's choices, be they ours or God's. I'm leaning more toward that way of thinking right now. Some, including some of those who believe in neither God nor luck ascribe every seemingly random event to the laws of physics which are perfectly predictable, if you know all the factors. Personally, I think that one of the factors is that God tends to pull strings when He needs to.

Not believing in luck can have many benefits, such as an increased sense of personal responsibility and a greater belief in a higher power. These things can be of great benefit when things are going well, but when things are going poorly, you may need a deeper perspective. When bad things happen and you can no longer blame it on a random streak of bad luck, you have little choice but to blame yourself, other people, or God for what has happened. This will require you to own up to your own mistakes, forgive other people for theirs, and understand that God knows what He's doing. But even these "downsides" to a lack of belief in bad luck can have long-term spiritual benefits, even though it's harder to deal with in the short-term.

Personally, I still kind of believe in luck, mostly because there are many times when the laws of physics have too many factors to make the outcome predictable and God doesn't care enough to pull any strings. For example, I could flip a coin right now and the result of the coin toss would be entirely dependent on what I would call luck. Though, theoretically, a person could practice flipping coins in just the right way to determine which side it lands on. Of course, that would take a level of skill that no living person has, but still, it's theoretically possible for a coin toss to not be random at all, so I guess there really is no such thing as luck.

The greatest benefit, I think, to not believing in luck comes in knowing that God is pulling the strings. When fortunate things happen to us, we can be reasonably certain that God had a hand in it. When unfortunate thing happen, we can be pretty sure that God had a good reason to allow it to happen. If we have enough trust in God, we can know that all of our experiences are designed for our benefit, and not just the results of random chance. This can encourage us to try to get on God's good side and remind us to thank Him for the many blessings in our lives. Essentially, we'll probably have more "good luck" if we give proper thanks to the source of it and remember to keep His commandments.