Proverbs 16:33 ESV
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+16%3A33&version=ESV]
What is Fortune? Is she a blind goddess, a biased mistress, or nothing at all? How are we to deal with the ‘cast of the lot,’ when the world turns out one way or the other apparently without our input? We can, after all, exert control over quite a few things. Generally speaking, I can make sure I don’t burn the cookies (and when I do, it’s my fault); I can decide whether or not I buy that book; I can decide whether or not I talk to that possible friend. Other parts of life are obviously not ours to control, but at least we know who controls them. How somebody else responds to me isn’t random chance, because it’s his choice, her choice. Then there are the parts of life without any apparent purpose to them, even if we can identify an agent: accidents, technological malfunctions, the weather, traffic, and the timing of that random phone call that did indeed distract me from the cookies. These we call ‘Fortune,’ not because we don’t see who does them but because they don’t seem to be at all related to a ‘why’, to what they cause, blind shots as purposed to hit the ground as the target or the sky or the bystanders.
In the barest sense, though, fortune is not ‘random;’ Scripture tells us clearly that true randomness, illogical or uncaused events, doesn’t happen, for all things have their root in Him, their guidance from Him, their purpose by Him (John 1:3; Rom. 8:28; Col. 1:17-20). What we call ‘luck’ is in a sense an illusion. The world is completely sensical, completely purposeful- and yet this seems contrary to our experience. Why?
Well, as it turns out, whatever the politician or the charlatan will tell you, we humans know remarkably little. I don’t know all the factors that go into weather; I don’t know how they interact with each other; I don’t know how to calculate all that fast enough to predict or even trace the causes of what is happening. Now, in theory and to an extent in practice we can do precisely that, collecting and correlating various signs to predict weather, but the example is merely a sample of the rest of life.
Fortune, then, is an emergent element of life based on our simple inability to fully comprehend the present and the past. We simply don’t know every other person who affects us, every other factors, and so we sometimes cannot tell why something is happening, just that it is. Indeed, we don’t quite comprehend ourselves, which does not help matters (Jer.17:9).
This definition opens the door to understand what this verse says. If there is a more quintessential example of fortune than the roll of the dice (the lots), then I don’t know it, but even this zenith of chance is entirely God’s. He has decided every factor which leads up to it; He has decided everything it will be used to lead into. Even when chance is misused, for gambling (Prov. 13:11) or for making decisions God would have us make in wisdom (Prov. 14:8), He has determined how that misuse will lead to His glory. The dice is not in control; random chance, without reck or rede, is not determinant; God alone rules.
In other words, God’s providence is absolute and total. Paul declares that, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good,” (Rom. 8:28), and this famous verse would be empty to the point of meaninglessness unless God does indeed work all things, unless it is His hand which decides all, unless He disposes of His creation for His glory which is our eternal joy (Is. 4:2). Fortune is merely the name we use for God’s handiwork, a name which all too often is used to disguise that it is indeed His handiwork.
The Christian, on the basis of this truth, can rest in Him. He does not, like the pagan, “set the table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,” knowing that to such as do, God will “destine [them] to the sword,” and so they “shall bow down to the slaughter” (Is. 65:11-12). He does not worship fate or history or progress or anything whose claim is merely existence, merely being larger than man’s earthly comprehension. No, the Christian rests certain in the Victor of ages, the Lord of history, the God whose hand catches the dice, who sees all and sets all aright in the end.
Nor does the Christian ‘rest’ as the world rests, in sloth and indolence. Yes, a part of his rest is Sabbath repose, but his rest is also to stride forth into the world, at war with its sin, conquering that which God has conquered (1 Cor. 15:54-57; Rev. 2:11). The Christian knows that he walks beneath the banner of He whose breaks kings with a rod of iron, who dashes them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Ps. 2:9). Therefore he does not fear, by God’s grace, to enact righteousness against all the might of the world, even against the vast and apparently causeless force of Fortune, knowing that the goddess Fortuna is but an idol, that she claims what is God’s by right and fact.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
