I grew up around poker. It was something my family did together. I’m not talking big money games or late nights, but whenever my family gets together the chips usually end up on the kitchen table. This is something I don’t really enjoy doing without family around. In fact, on a trip to Vegas a couple of years ago, I spent exactly five dollars in the slot machine, not even a single visit to the blackjack table. Since marrying into my family a few years back, by husband has also enjoyed this strange family tradition, and over the last couple of years has even enjoyed watching the occasional professional poker game on ESPN.
A couple of nights ago, after the kids were in bed, he found one of those games on and sat down to watch it. Something about it caught me as very strange: One of the players kept praying to God to help him win, and the wife of the other player (who was in the audience) kept praying for God to help her husband win his hand. Now maybe I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know what God is thinking, but it seems to me that God has bigger issues to deal with than who wins that poker game!!! I realize that maybe they were praying because they had their last dollar riding on that game, and without winning their kids wouldn’t eat that night. I would like to think that no one is stupid enough to put their last dollar on a poker game, but sadly I know that’s not true. I would hope that if I was the wife of the man who put our last dollar on a poker game I would be praying for my husband to grow some brains, not win the game and therefore encourage his habit.
This somehow reminds me seeing clips of various awards shows and watching people such as fifty cent (gosh, I even feel ridiculous typing his name) thank God for his win. There is lots of places I could go with that one, but I am reminded that God teaches us not to judge, so I’ll just say once again that I think God has better things to do than keep an eye on who is winning a grammy.
I just try to imagine my daughter in Sunday School and the teacher asking what she would like to pray for at the end of the lesson, and her response being: “I’d like to pray that my daddy wins his poker game”.
How ridiculous does that sound?
But it was the World Series of Poker Main Event; over 8 million dollars were at stake!
Maybe God cares when there is that much money on the line?
Probably not…
The scary thing is I watched the same show. Unfortunately for me it doesn’t really help my game…but I digress. I agree it was really weird, but it should be noted that in his interview earlier in the show I think he said he was going to give all his winnings to some philanthropic religious organization back in his native Vietnam. This didn’t really change the weirdness factor for me, but there was at least some context for the behavior. Anyway, next time we have a BBQ we’ll have to break out the chips so you guys can win some gas money from me. It’d be better than losing to the same guys up here all the time.
Good to know that we weren’t the only ones frying our brains on that stuff
I’m glad to hear that the money was going to a good cause, now I’d like to know what the wife’s excuse was.
God may be omniscient and omnipresent, but I agree with you that he has better things to do than making sure someone wins a poker game. As big as the casinos are here in MT, I just cannot stand to see them. Sure, they bring revenue in and make some people some money. Big deal. The money made comes from people who could usually serve themselves better by using it to buy food or pay off debts they already have. Gambling is essentially trying to gain something without putting in the work to get it. I believe that God honors a good honest day’s work and blesses people for it.
Not that there is wrong with the occasional friendly poker game, that’s not what I am saying, but when someone’s livelyhood rests on a playing card…I don’t know, there just seems to be something fundamentally wrong with that.
Oh – and I think its ‘Fiddy Cent’