Does Jesus care about poker?

Jesus wants you to muck that lousy fucking hand.

 

Contradiction from our perspective, perhaps. God decides who wins based on what He chooses to allow to happen. It's not like some sort of prayer-saying contest where the holiest-sounding person wins. God does as He chooses for reasons we will never quite understand on this side of the clouds.

Christians are taught to give thanks to God in all things. Which means, in theory, that we should thank God -- or more specifically, be thankful to God -- in losses as much as in wins. In practice, it rarely works that way. And it could well be a lot of those who mouth the words "I thank God for ______" in public are doing so because of convention and seeing others in their spot do the same. Sort of like how only three or four people give a standing ovation because they were moved by the moment, and then everyone else follows suit because that's what they think they're supposed to do. That's a whole other matter entirely.

But a faithful believer in God that truly gives thanks to God, I don't think there's a lot to be offended by there.

 

Then why bother praying to win or thanking God for winning? If you can't have any affect, and you can't understand her reasons for controlling things the way she does, why bother at all?

 

I believe because that is what I think is the case.
I believe there is a powerful positive force. I believe there is a bliss to which one can aspire. I do not believe in asking God to make my wishes come true; I do offer thanks for the graces that come my way.
I believe I have been given choices to make about how to run my life. Some of those choices have turned out well. I have made mistakes. I don't see why I should blame anyone but myself for the mistakes or expect that anyone else handed me the successes -- because why would they be handed to me and not somebody else?

 

Because we as Christians don't (or shouldn't) think of prayer as a 24-7-365 letter to Santa Claus. Prayer is as much, if not more, about acknowledgement and celebration of what we have as opposed to what we want out of Him.

Put another way (Matthew 6:9-12 from the King James Version; your Bible may have some slight differences, but in essence they're all saying this:

9After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11Give us this day our daily bread.

12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.


In summation, we're to praise God, ask His will be done, give us the essentials of life and forgive us to the same degree we forgive others. That, I believe, is what He wants us to pray. So obviously it's somewhat shallow to pray for seemingly small or selfish things, but the fact of the matter is, we're not going to pray or do anything perfectly because we're flawed creatures. God listens to us, but He doesn't give us what we think we want.

It's easy enough to say "well, if I were God I'd end hunger and cure all diseases and make it so everything's perfect," but I'd also be willing to bet that at the end of the day, you'd have as many people pissed off at the job you did as if anyone else did it. That's why the whole "God can be all-powerful or just, but not both" argument is a non-starter to me, because we're judging from our relatively limited perspective.

It's highly complicated, and I'm probably not enunciating my thoughts as well as I could, so bear with me.

 

St. Martin of the Package Tour. Also has gambling.

 

I'm a Christian, but still wonder about those who thank God for the win. As if God doesn't care about the opponents.
Like it's been stated already, its more about praising God in all we do, and asking for guidance.

I do like one coach I cover, who too is a devout Christian, no matter what his team does on the field win or lose big, the first words he always says are along the lines of "First, I want to the thank the lord for the opportunity to be out here and keeping us all safe....or something along those lines."
He's never thanking God for winning, nor not praising him when they lose.

 

Jesus reacts to dealing off the bottom of the deck:

 

Jesus wasn't kidding about the vig.

 

I think that guy just hit runner-runner on a straight draw, and Jesus is about to punish him for being a donkey.

 

Phil Hellmuth would hate to see how lucky Jesus would get against him.

 

In one of his lesser known speeches, the Sermon Outside the Horseshoe, Jesus explains to his followers about the time he was burned by a pair of poket cowboys, and could only afford five loaves and two fishes in the morning, forcing him to improvise.