S. Michael Houdmann Supporter Got Questions Ministries

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "luck" as follows:1. The chance happening of fortunate or adverse events. 2. Good fortune or prosperity; success....to gain success or something desirable b...

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July 01 2013 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Jack Gutknecht Supporter ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church

One day when I was in high school, a girlfriend and I spent a whole afternoon looking for four-leaf clovers for her. We found a few. The four-leaf clover is a rare variation of the common three-leaf clover. According to traditional sayings, such clovers bring good luck. (I wasn't saved yet).

The only place I can point to where the Bible mentions "luck" is Psalm 90:10 in the Message Bible:

MSG: "We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard."

But generally, I don't think believers believe in luck. However, there is one passage in Ruth 2:3 in the King James Version that gets you to thinking: “Her hap was to light on the field belonging to Boaz." It sounds like happenstance. That's luck or chance. 

However, I believe we should use words like "providence" or "good fortune" instead of "good luck." I love what Samuel Ridout said:

"We see how everything is ordered of God, not by Ruth. She does not know in whose field she is gleaning: ‘Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.’ Humanly speaking, it was Rebekah’s hap to be at the well when Abraham’s servant came in search for a bride for his master’s son; it was the hap of the woman of Samaria to meet the Stranger from Judea, who had such words of life and grace to tell her. But we know that what is man’s ‘hap’ is God’s purpose, the purpose of love of Him who sees the end from the beginning and plans it all. His eye was upon Rebekah, and He made her go out to the well the first to meet the servant of Abraham. He constrained the woman of Samaria to go where she would meet the Son of God, and have her life transformed by the message He brought her. He knows and He draws each of us, at the appointed time and in the appointed way, to the place of blessing. How wonderful are His ways, and what love there is behind what seem to be the merest incidents. God is absolutely sovereign. All our blessings are from Him alone. The work of grace, from beginning to end, is His. Therefore to Him alone is all the praise." (Ridout, S. Gleanings from the Book of Ruth. Pleasant Places Press) 

One other place where "luck" is possibly mentioned is 2 Samuel 8. How "unlucky" for the Moabites living in King David's time! "Then he (David) defeated Moab. Forcing them down to the ground, he measured them off with a line. With two lines he measured off those to be put to death, and with one full line those to be kept alive. So the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought tribute." (2 Samuel 8:2).

October 15 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report