THE GAME I WAS NEVER MEANT TO WIN
On the games we master to stay safe — and the One who makes hiding unnecessary.
The corner lifts. Ace and Jack. Twenty-one. There was a season of my life I had learned to read what was in my hand without ever showing what was on my face. The skill was real. The cost took years longer to see.
Some games don’t destroy you because you lose.
Some destroy you because you get very good at winning them.
I have spent most of my life learning systems.
How to read them.
How to survive them.
How to stay ahead of them.
Long before I ever sat at a blackjack table…
I was already learning the game.
DEDICATION
To my sister — for the role you played in my life, and for teaching me things no one else ever could have taught me.
To my wife, Marty — for walking through storms, trials, victories, and revelations beside me. Thank you for recognizing something in me I did not fully understand myself. A peculiar treasure of God, as you would say. Thank you for loving me through every season — and for helping lead our lives toward Jesus instead of away from Him.
To the reader — if something inside this story stirs reflection about your own walk, your own identity, or the games you may still be playing, I pray God reveals truth gently and clearly to your heart.
To life itself — the long road, the painful lessons, the unexpected adventures, and the difficult seasons that one day become the very things that taught us who we really were.
SCRIPTURE
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” — Mark 8:36 (NKJV)
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me.” — Psalm 139:1 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
I didn’t become “the outlaw” because I wanted attention.
I became him because I never wanted to feel exposed again.
THE STORY
When I was young, I learned early that vulnerability came with a cost.
If you were different…
You got noticed.
If you were weak…
You got preyed upon.
If you were emotionally exposed…
Someone eventually used it against you.
So I adapted.
Sports.
Fighting.
Competition.
Winning.
Control.
I became obsessed with learning systems.
How people moved.
How pressure worked.
How environments shifted.
How to stay ahead emotionally while everyone else reacted.
At some point, survival stopped being behavior…
and became identity.
People started calling me “the outlaw.”
At the time, I wore it like armor.
Confident.
Strong.
Capable.
Untouchable.
But underneath all of it…
I was just building a man nobody could wound anymore.
THE MOMENT
What most people never understood was this:
I was never reckless.
I was disciplined.
Even at the blackjack table.
Especially there.
I didn’t drink away money.
I didn’t spiral emotionally.
I didn’t lose control.
I studied.
Blackjack became another system to solve.
Pattern recognition.
Emotional discipline.
Reading the room.
Knowing when to press.
Knowing when to walk.
And eventually…
I became very good at it.
Too good.
One vacation especially stays with me.
Marty and I were on a cruise ship years ago.
The first night I walked through the casino, I noticed they were running two-deck hands.
The moment I saw it…
I knew I could take the table apart.
So night after night…
quietly…
carefully…
under the radar…
I did exactly that.
I counted cards.
Stayed composed.
Stayed unnoticed.
Or at least I tried to.
Each evening I walked away with more money than the night before.
Each afternoon Marty and I would head down to the pool.
At first it was just casual conversation.
A few questions.
“How did you do that?”
“How are you walking away ahead every night?”
Most people leave their money at the table.
That’s the part they couldn’t understand.
But day after day…
The circle around us kept growing.
Ten people.
Then twenty.
Then thirty or forty gathered around the pool wanting to hear about the tables, the systems, the discipline, the edge.
People are fascinated by someone who seems to understand a game they keep losing.
I remember Marty and I going back to the room one afternoon and realizing something had shifted.
“Oh boy,” she said,
“we better get a handle on this.”
And she was right.
Because that old edge in me…
the outlaw…
the part that learned how to survive by staying ahead of systems and people…
was becoming visible again.
But something else was happening too.
Even while winning…
I was already beginning to leave the table internally.
Because deep down…
I could already see the cliff hidden behind the thrill.
I had watched enough people lose themselves chasing the rush.
Lose marriages.
Lose money.
Lose identity.
Lose peace.
Stay at the table long enough
and the game starts playing you.
THE TURN
So while I could have kept going…
I walked away.
Not because I lacked skill.
Because I finally understood the danger of becoming mastered by the very thing I thought I controlled.
And the truth is…
no one really knew me back then.
Not fully.
Not my parents.
Not my friends.
Not even the people closest to me.
I was emotionally unavailable by design.
Like a ninja.
Always studying the room.
Always guarded.
Always ahead of the threat.
I confused isolation with strength.
I confused being unreadable with power.
But eventually…
God began revealing something deeper.
I wasn’t free.
I was protected.
There’s a difference.
THE DRIFT
There is a voice that teaches men to build armor so thick they eventually disappear inside it.
Stay sharp.
Stay ahead.
Stay untouchable.
Never let them see weakness.
Never need anyone.
Never lose control.
That voice sounds like wisdom.
It isn’t.
Wisdom builds character.
Fear builds fortresses.
And some men spend their entire lives confusing emotional isolation with strength.
I know. Because I wore that armor. For years.
THE REFLECTION
The real turning point in my life didn’t happen at a blackjack table.
It happened in my backyard.
At the cross.
After the surgeries.
After the health scares.
After the trials.
After enough life had pressed hard against me to expose what still remained underneath all the armor.
I sat there one day and began uncovering, discovering, and discarding the things I needed to lay at the feet of Jesus.
Control was one of them.
The outlaw was one of them.
The need to stay untouchable was one of them.
And slowly…
The games started losing their authority over me.
Not because they stopped being thrilling.
But because peace started becoming more valuable than power.
Today, winning looks very different.
Winning is waking up beside a wife who loves Jesus.
Winning is putting my feet on the ground every morning and thanking God for another day of life I was never guaranteed.
Winning is knowing my sister walks with Him too.
Winning is sitting beside people rooted deeply in faith instead of performance.
Winning is gratitude.
Winning is peace.
Winning is still being invited to sit beside God’s campfire after everything I’ve carried through this life.
And one day…
when this final game is over…
I pray I hear only this:
Well done.
Welcome home.
Game’s over.
WALKAWAY LINE
Some of the most dangerous games in life are the ones you become very good at winning.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What part of your identity was built to protect you — and what would happen if God no longer required you to hide behind it?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for every difficult season that revealed what truly lived underneath my strength.
Thank You for the lessons hidden inside survival — the ones I could only understand years later.
Teach us the difference between wisdom and fear…
between protection and isolation…
between control and surrender.
Show us the places where we still hide behind identities built from pain instead of truth.
And remind us that real peace is not found in mastering every system around us…
But in finally becoming known by You without needing armor.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~
Wow, Brother that felt and sounded so familiar! I need sift through it again to the gold.