I feel I can speak on this subject because from my childhood up I have firsthand experience with chance and what it can do to lives. You see, at the age of seven I was introduced to the effects of chance running a person's life through gambling.
A close family member was invited to go to one evening of gambling that started at 7:00 and ran until 9:30 each night. A person participating in this type of gambling would have to miss certain things in order to be there. This particular evening they were prepared to spend the night gambling with the innocent game called bingo.
You may chuckle at this, but it turned out to be nearly 40 years of bondage and gambling addiction for this person, always waiting to see if she could win by chance. That first evening my close relative went just to see how it works, and lo and behold, she won $700—just enough to get excited (in 1962). From that point on, the game of chance was on for her.
This was a very domesticated person, a woman who stayed home and always took great care of her six children while her military husband was deployed around the world. She was always so caring for others, and don't get me wrong; she continued to be a caring, loving, person, and to me, as you have probably guessed, a great mother.
My mother got so hooked on winning by fate, chance, luck, or without being jinxed that soon she was going to play bingo morning, noon, and night to feed this addiction of being a winner. The consequences in a situation like this are never good for those involved, and for my mother they continued virtually daily for nearly 40 years. Chance was the motivating factor—"I may win big tonight; the jackpot is this amount."
Over all those many years our lifestyle changed, all because of her winning $700 at the beginning. For one thing, to not see my mother night after night, and many times all day after the age of seven, was a high price for me to pay. I did not like it at all. She had new priorities that rearranged our entire lives, all revolving around the chance to win big that day. Chance took my mother away from me, and she simply could not be there at those times of the day and night. For a seven-year-old, that can be, and was for me, a devastating blow. I had to share her with the bingo parlor.
This was not a job—she had to pay and pay and pay to play the game of chance; and it was not cheap, on a military income, to keep this addiction going. So it became a drain on the family income. Sure, she would win more than that once in the nearly 40 years of chance, but it was always too little too late, and only enough to keep chance alive.
It meant so many other challenges too. For one thing it was new responsibilities for me of taking care of my brother and sister because my mom acted as though this was her job, and we knew she would not be home until 10:30 each night after bingo. The children and even the entire family would often sit at home and wait to find out if she had won to see if we were going to be able to have extra money for certain things.
Chance also began to give us kids some promises like "If I win, I will buy you a new bike," or something else new, "so stay home and be good 'for chance.'"
From a personal standpoint, I would say that chance is no way for anyone to live their lives, because chance leaves too much—to chance. The problem is that sometimes, by chance, you do get a temporary victory. But through many evil spiritual forces, these wins are simply tokens to bondage. It is like a new drug user looking for a high and having a "good high." The person continues to chance it again and again until they are either hooked, overdosed, or strung out on the same drug that they thought they were mastering.
Chance is not how the God of the universe operates.
God is our source of true winning and real success (Prov. 3:5-7 NIV). Yet many times people from various walks of life like athletes, actors and actresses, corporate executives, business owners, and sometimes even ministers deal with this common problem of trusting in someone or something other than God for success.
With athletes, for example, this problem crops up in their quest to be number one on the stat sheets. That is true for people in the entertainment industry, like movies and radio broadcasting, too. It is important to make sure that in your quest for winning you seek first God, and He will become your source of victory. He is the anchor of our testimony of why we have success.
Inviting the Greater One—God—into your life is the number one thing you can do to embark on this life as a winner. When the Greater One lives in you, you are somebody special—you are already a winner, and you can succeed against all odds.
Being a winner begins with surrendering your life to Him. Then you can start this exciting lifestyle of winning, yet not just winning but winning against all odds.
by Donald Shorter
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Dr. Shorter is the pastor and founder of Pacific Christian Center Church, a vibrant, growing, non-denominational church in Tacoma, Washington. Leaving his successful secular radio and television broadcasting career as a television host on the Seattle, Washington ABC affiliates, Dr. Donald Shorter Sr. founded Pacific Christian Center Church in January of 1987 with his four family as the only members. 
