Chance and Luck

The concept of “luck” or “chance” is something many Christians are consciously or unconsciously allergic to. We seem to think “luck” is diametrically opposed to the sovereignty of God.

If we think of “luck” as the result of an inexorable but impersonal force of fate that draws us to a certain destiny, then, yes, this is opposed to our understanding of who God is. On the other hand, we can think of “chance” (and “luck” as a popularized concept of chance) as a more technically defined idea that easily fits within our understanding of God.

I happened upon (?) this 2007 article today, “Luck and the Entrepreneur: the four kinds of luck,” which is very helpful in crystallizing different kinds of “chances.” Much of what it has to say actually applies to movements and movement practitioners as well, if we have eyes to see it.

The important thing to begin with is the definition: “Chance: something fortuitous that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention.”

That is a definition that fits perfectly within our ideas about God. He is infinite, and orchestrating all things together, but we never see the complete picture, and often have only the faintest glimpse (if any at all) of his orchestration. Because of this situation, we are often left to wonder about things like “are things out of his control” and “if they are, why does he seem to allow bad things” and “if they are not, how he is completely sovereign”—and many other big theological things that fit, for me, with the Biblical passages about “things too big for me.”

If we view ‘chance’ as a statement about ‘things that happen that helped us, which we didn’t cause, and God was probably involved in some way but we can’t know how’ then statements about chance can also help, and that’s where this article comes in.

I’d recommend reading the article from this viewpoint: meeting a spiritually hungry person, or a person of peace, or a near-culture neighbor who wants to reach people, or any sort of situation that later leads to a Gospel explosion—all of these are ‘chance’ sorts of encounters. This article suggests there are four kinds of chance and gives suggestions for how to ‘improve one’s odds.’ How might this apply to Gospel work?

Chance type II, for example, obviously lends itself to our thinking about “going out among the lost”…

Read the article:

• Luck and the Entrepreneur: the four kinds of luck
• What’s luck got to do with it? Jim Collins & Morton T. Hansen in the NYT, on how “10Xers had significant ‘return on luck.’” The ‘lucky spikes’ didn’t make them, but their response to those opportunities certainly was a huge factor in their success.