Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The Faith to Keep a Two-Land Hand

In Magic: the Gathering, playing most cards requires mana, which is generated by land cards. Since each land can usually only produce one mana per turn, it's important to make sure you have enough land cards to play the other cards in your hand. However, since each player starts with only seven cards in their hand, and normally only draws one card per turn, it takes a certain amount of luck to get the number of lands you need by the time you need them.

For example, if you draw an opening hand that had several three-mana-cost spells, but only two lands, you would have to decide whether you'll keep that hand or take a mulligan, shuffling your current opening hand back into your deck, and drawing a new hand with one less card. Taking a mulligan might increase your chances of having all the lands you'll need, but having fewer cards would put you at a disadvantage. Alternatively, keeping a two-land hand is a small gamble, but with two or three chances to draw a land by your third turn, your odds are fairly good, so it's usually worth it to take the leap of faith.

In life, we never know what will come our way next. We can make educated guesses and we may have pretty good odds of things working out according to plan, but the future is never certain. In life, we can never know what cards we'll be dealt. But often, God asks us to move forward in faith. Unlike us, God knows exactly what cards are coming up next, and in what order. He knows which risks we can afford to take, and which ones we should shy away from. God knows when we'd be safe with taking a two-land-hand, or even a one- or a zero-land-hand (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Sometimes, we need to move forward with faith in order for things to work out according to God's plan, but if we do, they always will. God's plans are foolproof, so even though we may not know every detail about God's plans, and we may not know what'll happen next, if we act in faith, God will reward that faith with success.

Now, I'm not saying that you should always take crazy risks, like keeping a hand with too few lands in it, but what I'm am say is that, if God prompts you to go ahead and take the risk, then there really is no risk at all. God knows what's going to happen, so if He assures you that everything will be alright, you can have full confidence in that assurance and move forward in faith. I doubt God really cares how well I do in my Magic games and which opening hands I choose to keep, but if, for some reason, He prompts me to keep a hand that has very few lands, or even no lands, in it, I hope that I would have the faith to keep the hand, trusting that God would give me what I need in the moment I need it, just as He does when it really matters.

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