Contentment

I don’t know why (I’ve never used a betting app in my life), but an advertisement popped up on my phone recently offering me the opportunity to bet on whether the price of silver would go up or down over the next twenty-four hours. Silver. Over the next twenty-four hours. Who knew?

The ad was for Kalshi, a prediction-market platform. Its products are called event contracts, and its exchange model differs from a traditional sportsbook—or so I’m told. I’m not versed enough in online betting to know the difference. What I do know is online wagering has proliferated recently, and I can’t think that’s a good thing. Apparently, we can now bet on anything in life. Increasingly, the opportunity comes looking for us.

WHEN TRUST BECOMES A SALES PITCH

That bothers me—more than a little. One of the reasons it bothers me is that a few of my favorite podcasts are now being sponsored by these “betting” markets. Though not specifically faith-based, they are led by folks who claim a deep faith. That gives me a little heartburn. When we come to trust someone’s voice, that trust can extend to what they’re selling. I wonder whether these hosts have thought enough about what they’re inviting their listeners to do.

I’m also concerned that these betting markets are being used as a gauge for future elections. What are the chances so-and-so will win? What are the odds the Republicans hold onto the House? I wonder how those “predictions” might shape our judgment. A candidate’s chances of winning tell us very little about whether that person ought to win. Are we allowing the way people bet to influence the way we think about whom to vote for?

A SAINTS FAN’S CONFESSION

Sports betting raises another concern: the integrity of the games themselves.

Now, I need to confess something. I love the New Orleans Saints. And I have occasionally been accused of wearing a tin-foil hat when discussing the way officials treat my team. I rather prefer to think of it as protective headgear for a long-suffering fan.

After watching Jared Goff’s apparent fumble become an incomplete pass, then watching a similar-looking play involving Tyler Shough remain a fumble against the Raiders, I suspect my tin-foil hat club has picked up a few members. Welcome. Bring your own aluminum foil. We’re a modest operation.

Yes, I’ve heard the rules explanations. No, I have no evidence that either call had anything to do with gambling. Being a Saints fan does not qualify me to conduct a federal investigation, though it has given me considerable experience demanding one.

Beneath my humor, though, is a serious concern. Players, coaches, and officials make decisions that affect what happens on the field. Those decisions can also affect the outcome of wagers. That creates opportunities for conflicts of interest, misuse of inside information, and deliberate manipulation.

A disputed call does not establish any of those things. But it can illustrate how fragile trust becomes when fans know money is riding on the decision. A bad call has always been part of sports. Betting can add another question to the familiar argument about whether the official got it right: did somebody have a reason to get it wrong?

I need to be careful about asking that question of any particular person without evidence, but I’ll also remind us that betting-related misconduct has occurred. The NBA banned Jontay Porter after finding he shared confidential information, limited participation for betting purposes, and wagered on NBA games.

That example matters because an entire team does not have to agree to lose for a wager to be compromised. A market tied to one individual’s performance can create an opportunity for that individual to influence the result. The temptation deserves attention before another scandal gives us a reason to pay it.

THE NEXT BET IS ALWAYS WITHIN REACH

There was a time when going somewhere to gamble required at least the decision to go. That offered no guarantee of restraint, but it created a boundary. A phone puts the opportunity in our pocket. The same device we use to talk to our children, check the weather, and read the news can invite us to put money on the next uncertain outcome—the next election, the next game, even the next solitary play.

Convenience is usually presented as a good thing. I don’t think we can say the same thing when it comes to gambling. What happens when the next wager is always within reach? What happens when a loss can immediately be followed by another opportunity to win it back? And what responsibility belongs to businesses that earn money by encouraging us to keep participating?

WHOSE MONEY?

As disciples of Jesus, we ought to ask what this constant invitation to wager is doing to our families, our communities, and our understanding of a good life.

I find those questions inseparable from stewardship and contentment. The money entrusted to us carries responsibilities—to our households, to our neighbors, and to the work God calls us to do. The promise of a quick gain can make the ordinary work of earning, saving, giving, and waiting seem painfully inadequate.

Are we stewards? If so, then just whose money are we gambling with? I could rattle off a list of biblical passages that leave little doubt whose money it is. The one I’ll mention here is Matthew 25:14–30, the Parable of the Talents. The servants are entrusted with their master’s property, and they are accountable for what they do with it. That ought to make us ask whether the way we use what God has entrusted to us reflects His purposes.

What does faithful stewardship look like when I open my wallet—or an app on my phone? Am I considering what God would have me do with what He has given me? His generous grace ought to move me to gratitude and faithfulness. That deserves more thought than the odds on my next wager.

ARE WE CONTENT?

It’s not just a matter of faithful stewardship, either. It’s also an issue of contentment. I’m reminded of Hebrews 13:5 here: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

Are we trusting God for His provision, or are we trusting in blind luck?

We also need to consider how gambling can feed greed and envy. Do we gamble because we want something we don’t have? Do we gamble because we want something that belongs to someone else? Even if we start out simply wanting a little entertainment, we ought to pay attention to what keeps us coming back.

In Philippians 4, Paul describes contentment as something he learned. That suggests practice. It suggests that our desires need formation. A steady invitation to imagine how much better life could be after the next winning wager offers a competing lesson.

MORE THAN PERSONAL CHOICE

Certainly, some people place an occasional bet and stop. But a biblical assessment cannot end with the person who can afford a loss and walk away. It must also consider the person who keeps going, the spouse who discovers the missing money, and the child whose needs go unmet. When money needed at home is lost, the consequences reach people who never agreed to the wager.

Personal freedom matters. So do the responsibilities that come with it. Calling an activity a personal choice does not make all its consequences personal.

Friends, we can be biblical about this subject without humiliating people who are struggling–that’s what grace is for. Someone whose betting has become destructive needs the church. They need a place to tell the truth, find practical help, and discover people who are willing to walk with them. Their family needs care as well.

Even when gambling is legal, legality is an insufficient measure of whether an industry serves the common good. We can recognize personal freedom while questioning businesses that continually encourage people to risk money. We can enjoy sports while insisting that their integrity matters more than the number of markets someone can build around them.

That little advertisement about silver left me with a question much larger than tomorrow’s price. Just because we can make a bet out of something, should we?

I would like us to recover the freedom to enjoy a game, follow the news, or pick up our phones without being invited to put money on what happens next.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Confession time once again…I’m ready for this “Stay-at-Home” order to be lifted. I think I’m suffering from what “experts” (ugh! THAT word!) are calling “quarantine fatigue.” Basically, that just means one is tired of staying home. I’m tired of staying home and I work in an “essential” business and go to the office almost every day. But, I just want to go to the Mexican restaurant and have chips and salsa. I want to go to the movie. I want to go see my grandchildren play spring sports. I want to go to Dillard’s and buy my wife a Mother’s Day gift.

That’s a lot of “I” statements, and I’m sure there are some of you teeing up to pounce on me for my selfishness, but according to research done using cell phone data, I’m not the only one who has quarantine fatigue. More and more people are venturing out to beaches, parks and other places to break the monotony of quarantine. It’s interesting that the pandemic created one crisis. Now the quarantine is creating another. Apparently, people who are quarantined get bored, lonely and restless. Makes me wonder: Are we stressed from all this rest?

I’m not a simpleton. I know there are countless reasons we are stressed during this time. Many elderly are stressed because of the overwhelming impact the Coronavirus has on their demographic. Many small business owners are stressed by the potential loss of their livelihood. Many others are stressed from their lay-off from work, and many others are stressed by the financial impact the pandemic is having on their lives. But, stressed from rest, now that’s interesting.

Psalm 23

Quarantine fatigue puts me to pondering the 23rd Psalm. Psalm 23 must be the most-loved, most read and most quoted of all the Psalms. This psalm is called the Shepherd”s Psalm because it portrays God as a good Shepherd, who cares for and looks after his flock. The Psalm is attributed to King David. If anyone was qualified to describe God in this manner, it was David who had been a shepherd before he became a king. How often David must have gazed up at the heavens on a star-filled night whilst watching over his father’s sheep and pondered the very nature of God! Surely he must have pondered how much God was just like a shepherd. His years of shepherding had taught him a few things, and as he contemplated the shepherd’s work, he found a fitting description of what God does for his people.

There are a number of things David notes in this Psalm. The opening sentence really says all that needs to be said: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The NIV says, “I shall not be in want,” and the NLT says, “I have everything I need.” Everything that comes after the first sentence is unpacking what the Psalmist means by having everything he needs. Because we’re in the midst of a quarantine, and folks are even stressing from resting, my mind is captured by one idea David centers on—rest.

Man in a Hurry

We don’t often rest well in the 24/7/365 culture we were living in pre-pandemic. Rest is almost a forgotten art, but rest is integral to our human existence. We can’t wind the rubber band tighter and tighter. The tension has to be released, or sooner or later the rubber band will snap. When it snaps it will lead us to a mental failure, a moral failure or severe chronic health conditions. We’re seeing the same thing happen with quarantine fatigue.

I used to use a lot of Andy Griffith illustrations in my sermons. There’s one episode of the Andy Griffith Show that illustrates how we live most of our lives. The episode is entitled “Man in a Hurry,” and it’s about a business man from Raleigh (Mr. Tucker, I think is his name) whose car breaks down on Sunday. Of course, Wally, the owner of the filling station, isn’t available on Sunday, so Mr. Tucker convinces Gomer to try to fix the car. The man finds it imperative to get to Charlotte. No amount of coaxing will encourage the man to rest, relax, take it easy until Monday morning when Wally will be back and willing to fix his car.

He’s a man in a hurry. At one point, Mr. Tucker says, “You people are living in another world. This is the 20^th century. Don’t you realize that? The whole world is living in a desperate space age. Men are orbiting the earth. International television has been developed, and here, a whole town is standing still because two old women’s feet fall asleep!” Barney just looks at Andy and asks, “I wonder what causes that?” That desperate need to be on the run was broadcast in 1963—that’s the year I was born, folks. Things have only gotten worse since.

Rest

We need rest, and the Psalmist says that’s exactly what the shepherd offers his sheep. “He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.” You know how it is, right? Living life with all these balls juggling in the air—you’ve got the work ball, the family ball, the church ball, the society ball. We run frantically around trying to keep all the balls juggling at the same time.

Take a look at one of those balls—the work ball. The average American works 47 hours per week. We can’t wait to get to the weekend, right? But then, we don’t rest because we have to keep the family ball in the air. There’s laundry to be done. The yard needs mowing. The hedges need trimming. The roof needs fixing. The kids have ball games. Juggle, juggle, juggle. Then, on March 17th, all that stopped. We were forced to stop juggling the balls–to put them down, as it were. And now, we’re stressed about that, too. Ain’t life funny?

If we’re not resting, it might be a good indication we’re not following the Shepherd. Even when we’ve been given the gift of time to rest, and the rest is stressing us, it’s a good indication we’re not following because the Shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. HE does it. He does it because rest is part of God’s nature. God worked for six days and He rested. God looked on the seventh day and saw that it was “very good.” The work was complete. And God built that rhythm into life. God didn’t need to rest because He was weary from the work. God rested because the creation was complete. It was whole.

Yeah, we had to go and mess it up. But, we can rest because we are complete in the Shepherd. We find wholeness in our relationship with the shepherd, and I remind us that wholeness is really the definition behind this little thing we call salvation.

Rest comes as a result of contentment. Sheep rest when they are content. Phillip Keller in his great book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, says there are four things that create discontent in sheep: 1) fear, 2) friction, 3) parasites, and 4) hunger. The sheep are able to rest when the shepherd addresses each one of those circumstances.

So, what are we afraid of? We can acknowledge there is much that promotes fear in the pandemic. Let’s name those fears. Where are the places of friction in our lives? All the memes on social media about home-schooling and drunk teachers are funny for a reason. Is it in a relationship? No doubt, the quarantine has caused a number of couples to deal with issues that have long been buried. What are the parasites that are drawing the life out of us? What are we hungry for (besides Mexican food)? We find meaning, purpose and value in life when we depend on the Shepherd, not when we depend upon ourselves–even in a quarantine.

Finding Stillness

Rest doesn’t come easily or automatically for us. We must cultivate the art. May I offer some suggestions to aid cultivation?

Block out time–even with an abundance on the calendar–to rest. Hopefully, you’ve established a routine even for the quarantine. Include intentional times of disconnect from the routine to stop and connect with the Shepherd.
Don’t take yourself (or others) too seriously. There are things that are serious, but they are far fewer in number than we imagine.
Laugh out loud every day at something. I didn’t say laugh at someone. That can be destructive. But, the wisdom writer of Proverbs says, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine” (Proverbs 17:22).
Embrace the gift God is giving us to change the things in our lives that need changing. God is giving us the opportunity to reassess our priorities by learning what we can live without.

Rest is part of God’s provision for our lives. In the midst of quarantine fatigue, it seems a good time to be reminded that rest is part of the “all I need” the Good Shepherd provides. Perhaps that’s our greatest need. Maybe it’s why that’s where David started his greatest song.