Do you like gambling? The adrenaline rush? Just the fun of it? Time to escape?

I don't have anything against having a good time. But there's something troubling about gambling. Taking a risk and winning makes you feel privileged or lucky. Taking a risk and winning looks as attractive as cheese in a mousetrap when you buy into that feeling of being lucky above others. It's when you discover you want or even crave the win more than anything else that proves you've been trapped. You end up losing perspective without realizing it.

It's very hard to admit we've been trapped when we're telling ourselves we've especially lucky. I remember how angry I felt one day when I discovered I had been trapped in an addiction. But I also knew the quicker I recognized and admitted my delusion, the quicker I'd find my freedom. It was tough to face the truth, but that was my way out.

All addictions are delusions. That doesn't seem true, but the more the lie builds upon itself, the more painful the truth may feel that is needed to destroy it. The lie hiding beneath the surface of gambling is so malicious that the suicide rate for compulsive gamblers is two hundred times higher than it is for drug or alcohol abusers (Seventeen Magazine, January 1999).

So it's important to think deeply about gambling. The deception is actually based on the thrill of believing that something good comes from some means other than God. Luck doesn't come from God, because the concept of luck by definition implies that some have it and others are excluded. What God gives us, however, is spiritual ideas, which are abundantly available to everyone.

People who have rightly earned success know it. Mary Baker Eddy explains that genuine success must always find its source in truthful thinking and responsibility. She writes, "The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible" (Science and Health, p.199). People in high-risk businesses will confirm that even when big risks appear to be profitable, they are only successful when they actually work to reduce the risks.

What if you already feel trapped in gambling? How can you shake loose from that yearning? God is already there with you, patiently waiting for you to ask for His help. You'll be amazed at how much more secure God's love feels than taking risks. In quiet honesty, you can ask God to show you what you already have that people love in you. God gives you countless good ideas and is guiding you in ways to use them. What feels profoundly satisfying is remembering your God-given worth.

Here's where we need Christ. Christ is that quiet voice talking to us, whether we're in trouble or not. Christ tells us the truth—that we do want what God is giving us. Christ tells us we're valuable because we're God's own children. Christ is the force for good in our lives, turning us from the fears of worthlessness to the realization of our God-given goodness. Christ is bearing this precious message to us from our Father-Mother God:God loves us the way He made us, and this love never stops.

Even Jesus was tempted with feelings of glamour and glory. Before he got totally involved in his public work, he was tempted in the wilderness (see Matt. 4:1-11). It was the Christ-power that rebuked the tempting thoughts. Jesus knew the temptations were empty attractions. More than popularity or money or power, he wanted the real things that God had to give to him, and to all of us. So, when he turned away from all the wrong thoughts, he could follow God's lead. He paid attention to the thoughts from God, and that's how he gained his remarkable authority. With God's power and guidance, he could do things that fame could never have delivered. He healed people, subdued the weather, and raised the dead.

We can follow Jesus' example by resisting the things that tear away at our worth and by keeping the things that God is giving us. Think how much our friends appreciate us when we use our God-given talents. God never asks us to give up things that make us truly happy or content. When the excitement of gambling is exposed as a cruel deception, it's easy to see why God is guiding us away from such danger. We know that God really is on our side when He opens our eyes, keeping us from false attractions and leading us to greater capacities for accomplishing good.

This is what makes God your best friend. What He has to give you is more satisfying, more fulfilling, more intelligent than any risk or gambling win could ever be.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be kind of firstfruits of his creatures. ...

Whose looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

James 1:17, 18, 25