Deck of Cards

Life can feel like a deck of cards. Lately I have been thinking about this much and talking with my patients regarding it. You see, you don’t get to choose what cards you hold. You don’t know what cards are coming next. All you can do is seek to understand the game you are playing and play the wisest card you deem appropriate in the moment. The next card comes and perhaps you find yourself wishing you hadn’t played the last or have a surge of relief that indeed that was the perfect card to play. Then the draw comes. You hope it will be a good one that won’t sabotage your current hand or be a pointless throw away card. You find yourself constantly waiting in anticipation and looking for that very card you need to win the game. Will it be the next card you draw? All you can do is hope, wait, and play. Round after round, the game continues, your heart gets let down, perhaps hope starts to fade as one bad card after the next keeps rolling in. Old cards, new cards, change, decisions, the game goes on.

Doesn’t this feel like life? Waiting, movement, change, decisions coexisting together. Everyone around you with a different set of circumstances. Everyone being dealt different cards. Perhaps marriage, children, home, travel, money. It is so easy to wish you had the hand your friend had, but no you are stuck with your hand and the cards that keep rolling in just seem unfair. Perhaps you blame it on your ethnicity, lack of education, lack of opportunities, socioeconomical status. Whatever it is, you begin to believe the game is rigged against you. Bitterness, jealousy, hate, depression creep in and consume you. Or perhaps you have been dealt a perfect hand or at least it appears that way, but deep down we all know there is a seed of unhappiness brewing because there is always that one card you do not have. We want more, we want different, we don’t want what we have.

What cards do you have? Where does life find you right now and how are you thinking about it?

I sat with a patient of mine yesterday and this topic came up. She is gradually loosing control of her body due to a neurological disease. The daughter stated “my mom got really unlucky.” Unlucky, it would seem that way. But is there another way? Is life just a random deck of cards? This is where a perspective shift is needed.

Life indeed is not a random deck of cards. There is order, there is design, there is intentionality and purpose in everything because there is One True God who created life, created you, and seeks that you may know Him. Your situation, the very hand dealt to you and the very card coming next is not by chance but rather divine purpose.

So many struggle because they do not understand the game of life. Perhaps they haven’t tried to figure it out, don’t care to, or have sought and believed answers from a false god. The game of life is confusing when one’s viewpoint is distorted in untruth. If the words unfair, unlucky, unjust, unequal, unfortunate, unfavored, unblessed seem to be your reality in actuality you have chosen to pursue and believe lies about life over truth. Lies poison your mind and change the way you view what you have been given and how you live. The cards you are living and will be given feel empty and hopeless because with an untrue perspective your understanding of life is upside down.

To understand life you must know the One who created life. To understand your circumstances you must know the One who ordained your circumstances. To make life decisions you must know the One who is wisdom. The answers to the game of life  and all the cards you will be dealt have been unveiled in the Word of God, the Bible. True truth, meaning, and purpose of life come from God. He is the perspective shift we need. Knowing Him changes how you view, handle, and respond to the cards you will be dealt in your lifetime.

My patient can’t change the fact that she has a neurological disease. This is the card she has been dealt and the game she must play. But her mindset and understanding of her disease changes drastically when viewed through the world’s understanding versus God’s perfect ways. The world tells her she is unlucky and broken leaving her hopeless. God tells her she is chosen and whole in Christ regardless of her physiological state. Her function will decline but in Christ she knows the final card that will be dealt. Heaven is her ultimate home and there her body will be newly restored (1 Cor. 15:52-53, Rev. 21:1-4). She doesn’t know what card will come tomorrow but she does know who it is coming from - her Heavenly Father who loves who earnestly. He will give her the strength, grace, wisdom, and discernment to use that card for His glory and her ultimate good (Isa. 40:29, 2 Cor. 12:9, Prov. 2:6, Rom. 8:28, Rom. 11:36, Rom. 5:3-5, James 1:2-4).

As you start this new day may you focus not so much on what you hold in your hands but the One who holds your hand, who ordains your steps, who guides and lights the way, and who purposes every season of your life.

Don’t rush the next hand, it will come, don’t make decisions on that which hasn’t been given rather play from the hand you have not the hand you wish you had. Most importantly aim, strive, seek after, and purpose each day to know God more and more. It is in knowing Him you will understand truth and thereby better understand, receive, and play whatever card comes your way next. There is no fear in an ever changing hand when God is your life.