I wonder

Sometimes I wonder if it is possible that we ruin the good things that are happening to us, simply by reacting to them inappropriately. And I'm not thinking about anything direct. I'm thinking more like chance things that seem to just go right, and then we get to thinking about them in a different way than we aught, and then they stop happening the way they have been. I'm not talking about poker this time, but again it would be a good example. If I've been winning at poker for a while, and suddenly I start thinking about all the money I could make playing poker, might I start losing then, like as some kind of punishment from God or from the world or what have you? I hate to think of God that way, as if he's always just allowing good things to happen when we're not being selfish or wrong-headed in some way, and then cuts them off the second we get a bad thought in our heads. But part of me wonders if that's really the way it is. If we are content, and I believe we are supposed to find contentment (I might not truly know the way of that one), then we can often enjoy the blessings God gives to us. If we become discontent, then we begin to struggle through life. Part of that merely is a direct outcome of our rooted discontentment. We are discontent, and so we have a hard time with everything else, too. But I wonder if some things happen in life because we are not content, which would not actually happen that way if we were. Like if I was content with what I won or did not win at poker, might I actually win more? That's crappy, isn't it?

My first answer to that question, on impulse, is no, I wouldn't win more just by being content, and I wouldn't stop winning just by being selfish. Life doesn't work that way. Selfish people get rich all the time. But then I think, things happen for a reason, right? You could say no, and I wouldn't have much to say to that, but I have to believe that most things in this life happen for a reason. That's not to say we can't pervert or obstruct the driving purpose behind the events in our lives, but that it's there. If I don't "win the girl" at some point in my life, which has happened to me several times, usually console myself with that fact that there is a good reason that it didn't happen the way I wanted. I guess the real question is, could some of those things that don't happen our way actually be our fault, for not having the right attitude about them.

I suppose I don't really need to have the answer to that question. It doesn't really change the way I'm supposed to act in this world. I still need to learn to be content. I still need to learn to take risks. I still need to be a blessing in this world. But I wonder.