IT IS UNDER CONTROL!

Sunday, September 20, 2020

 

IT IS UNDER CONTROL!

 

Prov 16:33

33 The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.

 

           When we don’t know the way, sometimes we cast lots. The lot, in biblical times was similar to our square dice. It was a stone, or perhaps a handful of stones, inscribed with numbers or symbols.

 

           The conquered lands were divided amongst Israel’s tribes by lot. One’s parcel of land, or inheritance, was determined by a roll of the dice. It is interesting to me that our word “clergy” is the Greek word kleroi which is the word for lot or appointment. We see this in Acts 1:26 with the selection of Matthias to replace Judas as one of the twelve.

 

           I remember one family who settled in Maryland by tossing a rubber band onto a map. When the band circled a small town in southern Maryland, they bought a house there. That seemed a bit strange to me but no stranger than other methods of discernment, I suppose.

 

           The thing to remember is that “the whole disposing of a matter is of the Lord.” Luck becomes leading when we understand that God has everything under control.

 

Rudyard Kipling mentioned a game of “pitch and toss” in his classic poem “If.”

 

If you can keep your head when all about you  

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;  

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;  

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,  

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!