"Lucky Man"

“What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar. The fear of the LORD leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.” Proverbs 19:22-23

“But I know I'm a lucky man
God's given me a pretty fair hand . . .
And even my bad days ain't that badYeah, I'm a lucky manI'm a lucky lucky man” –Montgomery Gentry

How many days do you wake up saying that you are a lucky person? You should wake up every day saying that you are a lucky person. Why you ask? The answer is simple, because you are a child of Christ. That Montgomery Gentry song talks about things that put him in a bad mood, when his Bengals lose, when he curses the rain, and complain again when the suns too hot, then looks at what everyone else has got. But then realizes that the Lord has made him a lucky man. He goes on to tell us that God has given him (and all of us also) a pretty fair hand. Sure we may not have everything that we want. Our neighbor may have that fancy car, or the huge wardrobe, or big house or whatever it may be. Gentry goes on to say he has a few dollars in a coffee can, and his truck is still running good and his ticker is ticking like they say it should. You are still breathing right? Isn’t that the most important part of our life, breathing. As long as we breath and have faith in our Father we are lucky.

“Even my bad days ain’t that bad.” As the date of college graduation comes around the corner, fear seems to be setting in. Not a fear of bad grades or failure but a fear of what will happen the days following graduation. There are days when I have 5 exams at once, and days when I wake up not feeling well and yet still have to go to multiple classes, and days that I just don’t want to talk to anyone because of any given event. Yet none of those “bad” days matter, because every one of those days I am still trusting in Christ, which is where my faith is at. “Yeah, I’m a lucky man.”

Proverbs says a man deserves unfailing love. Go ahead and check that one off. Christ has unfailing love for us, and we give that love right back to him. The passage goes on to say better poor than a liar. When we lie we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. This is a portion of our confession and absolution, lying gets us nowhere. And if we didn’t have God we would be poorer than dirt. To me everything in that statement God has taken care of for us. We are not poor because we have him, and we are truly lucky. Therefore since we have fear in the Lord we are able to have life a very good life.

So let’s take it one step further, how often do we do something that we do not want to do? In Romans 7 Paul talks about how we do all these things that we do not want to do and are unable to do the things that we want to do. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” So as many of us are in college, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that we don’t know where we are going. It is a bad thing that we don’t keep our faith and trust in Christ. Too often than not we think that we can make our own decisions and that our decisions are better than God’s.

Let’s just add one more thing to this, let’s add the fact that without Christ we are completely worthless. He doesn’t need us, but rather we need him. Jesus has the ability to bring more people into His kingdom; we are just helping in the process. On the flip side though, without Jesus dying on the cross for our sins we would have no chance of ever getting into the kingdom of heaven. So thanks be to God, our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace for leading us in the right direction.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for allowing us to wake up every morning and being able to say that we are lucky men and women. We ask that you help us to do those things that we want to do and refrain from the things that we don’t want to. We are all a light of yours and ask that you help each and every one of us to show our light at every chance that we get. Finally Lord, we ask that you help us to not worry about what direction you are leading us but rather allow us to put our full trust and faith in you. In Christ’s Name. Amen.