Survive and Thrive: Day 6

Today continues a series of 7 daily posts that will allow you to Survive and Thrive in your divorce recovery process. It will be available on the YouVersion Bible App eventually, but I wanted to share it with all of you first. May it be the blessing I pray it needs to be for you.

I loved playing cards when I was young. I can remember playing my dad and beating him not long after he showed me a game. I guess that was when he decided to teach me a new game. He didn’t want me to beat him any more.

Does it seem like you’ve been dealt a bad hand of cards? It seems sometimes all you get are jokers and they are not even wild. When you thought you had a great hand, something happens. You play your cards and you still lose.

Truth is you are dealt some cards, and it is your job to play them to the best of your ability. A professional poker player can play horrible hands and make millions. It is all about how you play the cards that you hold right now.

In poker, you play until you run out of money or chips. Depending on how you manage your stack, you could play so many hands you will lose count. But what happens when you run out of chips?

Describing life and the ‘bad hands’ we get dealt in poker terms is easy. Yet, God wants you to know that you get many hands, many chances to learn, many opportunities to gain wisdom through the good times and the bad. Our job is to learn from them and not run out of chips.

I see our breath being the chips. We may get so close to 0 you play scared, and you play differently when you have a lot of breath (life) left. Sometimes you go ‘all-in’ and get down to your last breath.

If you run out of chips, guess what happens? God will give you His breath (chips) if you ask Him. He will keep you in the game with another hand, another chance to hit the jackpot.

Don’t think the only hand you get in life is the one you are holding. Play it the best you can and get ready for the next hand.

2 Timothy 2:15

¹⁵ Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

1 Corinthians 9:24

²⁴ Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

1 Kings 17:14

¹⁴ For thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.’”