Do you think you’re a lucky person? Some people think we make our own luck. Thomas Jefferson is often quoted as saying ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’. ‘Luck’ on this view is just an excuse for lazy or incompetent people to explain their failures.
Others disagree. No matter how hard you work, so much in life seems to come down to blind chance. There’s a terrible hypocrisy to a man who was born wealthy and owned slaves claiming that good fortune is all a question of hard work.
Ruth 2 shows us another angle. She certainly works hard, but she also benefits from some good luck by happening across a field owned by one of Naomi’s relatives – and Boaz shows her such amazing generosity. But the characters all talk as though it is the Lord doing all this. Where might his hand be hidden in the ‘random’ events of our day-to-day experience?
Ed
Do you feel lucky?