When I was growing up a few years ago in the Piney Woods of East Texas, there were several Rites of Passage expected of a young man. One of these steps was mastering the game of poker. You see, card-playing was part and parcel of my youth. Flinch, Battle and I Doubt It made up the bulk of our repertoire as children, but as we got older we were obliged to engage in more challenging pursuits.

I started playing poker with my older brother and some cousins his age; my initial efforts were not star-studded with success. As a matter of fact, I was blown out of the water on an embarrassingly constant basis. I figured I'd never get the hang of it.

Then I noticed something odd. When my brother claimed a win with four nines, it often looked to me very much like two nines, a four and a ten; my cousin's three aces appeared for all the world to be two aces and a jack. A triumphant four kings bore an amazing resemblance to three kings and a two. Reflecting on this at some length, I solved the mystery of family poker.

Wild cards.

Twos, fours, tens and one-eyed jacks, to be specific. And jokers, if you could shuffle and deal before anyone remembered to take them out of the deck. With this array of wild cards on my side, anything became possible. Once I beat my brother's four aces with five of my own, life took on a whole new meaning.

Perhaps God doesn't play dice. Cards? I'm not so sure. What were the prophets, if not God's wild cards? People invested with a burning sense of life, called by God to make a difference in their corner of the world.

We see wild cards every day - human beings so full of life they pass the magic on to us just by being around. Artists, lovers, children - these are God's wild cards today. And senior citizens who share their love, wisdom and fearlessness. Employers who cherish integrity more than profit, employees who value doing a job well more than wages, parents who give self-esteem to their children.

Maybe each of us is a wild card of God, just waiting to be played - in our homes, at our work, at school, at play. Maybe we're God's magic for the situation we've been dealt. Maybe we've shuffled around long enough, and it's time to get into the game.

Okay, God.

Ante up!