The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33 (ESV)
The lot is an old-time equivalent for dice, I’ve gathered. And Scripture says God decides how the dice land.
In other words, Romans 8:28.
God works all things—easy and hard things, pleasant and painful things, even seemingly random things like rolls of the dice—for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Nothing is Random
In a sermon on Psalm 16, John Piper explains that,
[W]hen the dice are rolled, and the straws are drawn, and the wheel is turned — whatever happens to us comes from the hand of God. God holds my lot. God decides it. The Lord rules over it. God is my sovereign, and I am glad to have it so. I don’t just affirm it stoically; I exult in it.
That’s what I heard in the morning. That nothing that happens is random.
Then God gave me a chance to affirm it in the afternoon. On a 95° day in May, our air conditioning conked out with friends on the way. God gave me an opportunity to exult.
God Rolls the Dice
The friends still came. And on the eve of Memorial Day we finished our rhubarb pie and with box fans blowing, we sat around the table and sang God Of Our Fathers, with a trumpet fanfare care of a teenager in band.
Then, out of the blue, smack dab in the middle of verse two was another line about how our lot is cast.
Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide and Stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.
I miss things, but even I couldn’t miss that: God holds our lot. By him our lot is cast. God decides how the dice land.
So Enjoy the Sun
This high view of God’s sovereignty might seem fatalistic or pessimistic, especially on the day we remember Americans killed serving our country. Hundreds of thousands of young men—the average age was 26—died in just in the Civil War.
A little more than 50 years after our Civil War, Canadian soldier and WWI physician John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields to honor a fallen friend. In Belgium, he had tended to this friend before he succombed. This is the second stanza,
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
The sunset glow got to me. I’m all about the sunset glow.
In fact, I think all of God’s blood-bought children ought to be. I get that from Ecclesiastes 11. Knowing that our days pass like a gasp and that man knows not his time, should not push us to despair, but rather should prompt us to rejoice.
7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.
8 So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.
9 Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
It could be that included in “all these things” for which God will judge us is this:
Did we enjoy the sun? Did we rejoice in our youth? And did we rejoice all our days?
Could it be that included in the “all these things” for which God will judge us is this: Did we rejoice all our days?
Today we remember the dead.
Today we living rejoice, for our lot is with God.
Which means that the dice will always land for our ultimate and final good.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
Psalm 25:10 (ESV)
Two Memorial Day Resources for you:
This is the perfect fast-paced, ten-minute (educational) game for after your Memorial Day barbeque. I put it together for dinner group and we played it after our Decoration Day picnic themed dinner.
In Flanders Fields is the poem that inspired the red poppy symbolizing Memorial Day. It is well worth the two minutes it will take you to read.
