Hard times for me use to call for desperate measures, or so I thought. Often I felt like I could not catch a break. Bill after bill kept meeting me at my mailbox and I grew tired and frustrated. I tried to understand how as a believer, why I was struggling so hard in my finances. There was a point where I literally could not breathe because it was all too overwhelming.
I did a lot of praying, but someone how, I convinced myself that God owed me. In my mind, I was a good and faithful servant and was deserving of favor and a win. I had assured myself that I was more than lucky I was blessed so in the middle of my financial mess, I found myself playing the lottery. Surely God wouldn’t allow the lottery to exist if He did not mean for it to be a blessing to the people.
Horrible logic but I was growing desperate and so without even knowing how the lottery worked, I asked the cashier about the Pick 3. She explained that I could pick the numbers myself or allow the machine to pick them. Yes I was embarrassed about standing at the lottery kiosk filling out a ticket, being a Christian and all, so I opted to let the machine pick and gave the cashier my dollar. I placed the ticket in my wallet and walked back to my office still trying to convince myself that God owed me a win. He knew I would do good with my winnings. I would pay tithes, buy some much needed items for the church, make sure me and my kids were set, and help those less fortunate.
Major fail! I was dead wrong. I moved my faith from being in God to being in a numbers game created by man to cause man to lose. I had even persuaded myself into believing that God was going to give me the win because He knew I would use the money to perform good deeds. All I did that day was gamble with my faith.
God dealt with me after that. He reminded me that I put my faith in a Pick 3 lottery where three numbers were randomly picked for me by a machine and I believed those three numbers were supposed to change my life.
God gave us a sure fire Pick 3, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is not a gamble when you trust them to change your circumstances. They were not chosen at random for our lives but they are the creators of life and have predestined us for this journey.
If I would have won that Pick 3, it wouldn’t have solved all my problems and in fact, may have created more problems for me. The winnings would have been temporal but if I wasn’t a good steward before winning, riches would not have changed that. Now my Pick 3 is in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Through my relationship with these three, I am overcoming financial hardship and walking into wealth. I know my winnings with them are not temporal but everlasting. God’s goodness toward me is how I’m winning, and Psalm100:5 says, “For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” (NASB) So don’t gamble with your faith, trust God and His Pick 3.
Deborah Woolard is a single mother of three from Raleigh, NC and she currently resides in Charlotte, NC. She is an ordained & licensed minister and she serves as the Youth Director at R5 Church. Her love for writing, especially poetry is one of the many ways God allows her to use her gifts for His glory. Her poetry can be viewed at https://m.facebook.com/gracefullydsignedbydeborah/.