Life, Stephen commented tonight, is rather like a pack of cards. When you play a card game such as poker, certain phrases from the game have become so widespread as to have a significance outside the game itself: having a ‘poker face‘ means to have an impassive expression on one’s face, not revealing one’s true feelings (useful since poker is as much about bluff as the value of the cards you hold); ‘keeping your cards close to your chest’ means to keep your intended actions private (whereas literally in a card game, it’s a tactic to avoid letting others see what cards you hold!) So often in life we may complain about the cards we have been dealt, feeling life is treating us unfairly or we keep our cards close to our chest, refusing to let others or God into our lives.
Gen 3:8 reminds us that Adam and Eve hid from God after they had disobeyed Him. We often try to hide from God what we have done, pretending that everything in life is going well or hiding our shame and guilt from God. Luke 22:56-57 reminds us that it is easy to deny God, even if we have previously been so passionate about Him: Peter, when challenged about being one of Jesus’s followers, denied even knowing Him.
A better way than holding our cards close to our chest and hiding from God or than trying to tackle life on our own is to spread out all the cards of our lives before God, rather like Hezekiah did with the threatening letter he received from his enemies (2 Kings 19:14). We can lay all our cards before God, allowing Him access into every area of our lives. Heb 4:13 reminds us, after all, that ‘nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.’ There is no point hiding anything from God or pretending we can cope with all life deals us on our own. Instead, we should bring our whole lives before God and invite Him to make something of every hand we hold. After all, He can bring good from every situation, turning the most useless of ‘hands’ into something useful and winning. He can make us more than conquerors if we will only let Him in.
