The Shell Game

At the end of the September trip, we were in Budapest, on a high spot overlooking the river dividing the city.  Off to the side was a man with a cloth spread on one of the steps, offering a "shell game".  I watched as he used a small roll of aluminum foil and three pocket-sized match boxes to play out the game.

One tourist after another first won 100 euros, then lost 200.  His two "shills" on the sides spoke excellent English, and you might have thought they were tourists, friendly, laughing, encouraging to the players.

As I watched, he did seem a bit clumsy to be doing a shell game.  He let the little aluminum "pea" roll off to the side, his moves were pretty transparent, he dropped one of the boxes once, just not very good at the game.  Then I watched  as he won his money back from each player, and on those rounds, his hands were amazing, and impossible to follow!

One of the shills encouraged me to bet.  But by then, my opinion had firmed up.  He was not clumsy, he was totally in charge of the event.  No one was going to win, except him.  I watched for about 5 minutes, and he took in about 600 euros in that time.

Life is full of shell-games.  The watcher gets over-confident, self-confident, says to self:  "can't lose!" and then proceeds to lose the whole wallet.

Jesus said we should be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  LOTS of wisdom in that short saying;  buy into that one and you take one more step toward the abundant life, and several steps away from the shell-games.