I gained a healthy measure of respect for "odds" on July 4, 2000--this the day before I underwent open-heart surgery. The concept of odds was nothing new, of course, but the reality of it all became quite clear when I was told my chances of survival were on the order of ninety-eight percent.
The Bible versus the lottery
On one hand these lopsided odds in my favor were comforting; on the other I was troubled by the two-percent chance I might not survive.
What to do? In prayer I gave the problem over to Christ and settled back in my trust and belief that He would carry me through, just as He promised.
In the two decades since my successful surgery and recovery, I've been asked how I could have had such belief in prayer or even Christ, for that matter. There are many reasons, but I've found it easier to illustrate my belief by using a simple comparison: The Bible versus the lottery.
One of the most popular lottery games comes with odds of 80 million to 1 against picking the winning combination. Now think of this single chance of winning as the TRUTH and the other 79,999,999 chances as LIES. To see the enormity in this, consider that 80 million people standing shoulder-to-shoulder would require a line stretching over 45,000 miles--nearly long enough to circle the earth twice. To win all you need to do is find the single truth in this mass of lies.
The Bible comes with some odds too, but they are far more user friendly. In fact, the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy is the seal of its divine origin (there are over 300 predictions about the Messiah in the Old Testament). You see, these centuries-old prophecies concerning the final sufferings of Christ were fulfilled during the twenty-four hours leading up to His crucifixion. According to the law of compound probabilities, the chance that they all happened together by accident is 1 in 537,000,000.
In his `God's Living Oracles', A.T. Pierson the renowned bible scholar points out;
"One might almost as well expect, by accident, to find any one particular drop out of the ocean as to expect so many prophetic rays to converge by chance upon one man, in one place, at one time. God has put especially upon these prophecies as to His Son the stamp of absolute verity and indisputable certainty, so that we may know whom we have believed. Mistakes in so solemn a matter are fatal, and God meant that none should be possible."
My position, then, is that I never play the lottery because there is no real chance I could ever win. My faith in Christ, on the other hand, is anchored in the knowledge that there's no real chance I could be wrong.
Bob Burdick is the author of The Margaret Ellen, Tread Not on Me, and Stories Along The Way, a short-story collection that won the Royal Palm Book Award.
I gained a healthy measure of respect for "odds" on July 4, 2000--this the day before I underwent open-heart surgery. The concept of odds was nothing new, of course, but the reality of it all became quite clear when I was told my chances of survival were on the order of ninety-eight percent. 
