Dr. Richard Lavoie, a Connecticut-based special education instructor and advocate, created an instructive film called "When the Chips Are Down".
In one segment of the film, he argued that young people, specifically special ed students, need to build up confidence in their lives. In every situation, they have a reserve of confidence, akin to poker chips, that they draw on. When they venture to talk to someone, for example, an individual students risks a certain set of poker chips, a certain level of self-confidence is requires in order to muster up the courage to talk to someone. For a new classmate, maybe 5 chips. For a potential girlfriend, 25. If a child has to confront the lunch lady and request exact change for a previous transaction, that can require the equivalent of 100 poker chips.
According to Dr. Lavoie, it's the responsibility of parents and teachers to invest students with as many poker ships as possible with compliments, rewards, recognition, and support. The more a child's emotional security is developed, the stronger they will become when speaking their mind or making choices, and when taking unusually risks.
Despite the good intentions of this idea, the foundations and result are forever flawed.
Human beings cannot base their esteem on something finite, like the good will of a parent or guardian. Even the most thoughtful and caring of parents cannot be perfect cheerleaders and supporter of their kids. They will fail, ignore the successes of their youth, or lose their temper. In fact, many parents barely had any poker chips when they became parents, and an insidious relationship ensues in families, in which parents began indirectly soliciting poker chips from the children.
No, for a cash of poker chips that will never run out, for a supply of good will, of unconditional love, one can look no further than Christ Himself.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
And this love is the most powerful agent of confidence in the universe:
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)
His Perfect Love, not our own, casts out all fear. We have no need, no reason to heed fears, tremblings, tumults, and speculations outside of us once we know that the Lord is with us.
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31-32)
He is for us, because He was delivered to save us. No one can harm us for He has given us all things with Himself! There is no need to fear!
By His death, we receive the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13), and therefore the Kingdom of Heaven(Luke 12:32)
And what is the Kingdom of Heaven like?
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." (Matthew 13:44)
At first, it seems like madness. Why would a man sell everything for a treasure which he has found, then reburies, then goes to buying the entire lot for himself? It's the nature of the treasure:
"Then said he [Jesus] said unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. " (Matthew 14:52)
The Kingdom of Heaven is an infinite, irresistible, incalculable store house of treasure, of spiritual wealth beyond all that anyone of us could possibly imagine (Ephesians 3:20), an inestimable wealth which Paul also writes of:
"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8)
Who needs poker chips when life becomes a certain victory (cf Romans 8:37), an infinite storehouse which unfolds for every believer who seeks to grow in grace and knowledge of this every supplying, Jehovah-Jireh God! (cf Genesis 22:14; 2 Peter 3:18)
The Love of God shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5) is more than adequate to safeguard us in the face of opposition and difficulty. When we meditate, filled to the fullness with His love, we can take on anything.
Case in point, David the little, disrespected shepherd boy, took down the Pride of the Philistines with one stone of his sling shot. He was an accomplished marksman, and he was anointed to be king of Israel, but what gave him the overcoming strength to take down a giant and dispel the Philistines was His unshakable knowledge that God loved Him.
His name "David" means "Beloved." He was conscious of God's love for him. Thus could he confidently proclaim to timid King Saul:
"And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." (1 Samuel 17:32)
"David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee." (1 Samuel 17:37)
And with this unshakable confidence, more poker chips than Jesse or any of his brothers could have given or taken away, David could then declare to Goliath:
"Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
"This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel." (1 Samuel 14:45-46)
Because the Lord had set His love upon Him, because the Lord was with him, was David able to pull off the unthinkable, taking down Goliath with one stone, and setting to flight the Philistine hordes.
Who needs poker chips when you have Christ in you, the hope of glory? With the inexhaustible treasure of Christ Jesus in every believer, we can face any challenge, we can overcome — nay we are more than overcomers in all things! (Romans 8:37)