My life group ended up having a semi-unplanned game night tonight instead of the usual Bible study.

We played a dice game called Farkle with unusual rules that I’m still not entirely convinced weren’t made up as we went along. The deal is you get points for certain rolls or certain combinations. Rolling a 1 gets you 100, rolling a 5 gets you fifty . . . you get the idea.

The catch is that you have to have a round of 1,000 points to get on the board. Needless to say, I was the last to get points.

In fact, for most of the game, I gallantly held my own in 4th place (out of 4 people). Toward the end, I had a more respectable score, but still looked likely to finish last.

On my very last roll, I started off decently enough. I got another roll. That went even better. By the end, I had won. I went from worst to first in one turn. And I’m still not completely sure how I did it.

I suppose my takeaway is to keep playing no matter what the score is. Don’t give up. As the great theologian Don Henley sang, “Everything can change in a New York minute.”

Don’t forget this. God is the best at making impossible into possible. As I heard a pastor say more than once, what seems impossible to you and me isn’t even remotely difficult for God.

Just remember that on this Autumn Thursday evening.