Honey, I bet the kids

Mom hung up the phone with a look of disbelief. She turned to Pop. “That was Evelyn. She and Dick missed the lottery by one number.” Pop’s bourbon and coke stopped halfway to his lips.

Dick and Evelyn Sorensen were my parents’ church friends. They bought one weekly lottery ticket, with numbers all matching key dates or numbers. One was their daughter’s age. On this fateful Friday, Dick paused. His daughter was 30 today; but tomorrow, the day of the drawing, she’d be 31. He hemmed and hawed and finally bought his ticket.

Turns out they matched 5 of 6 numbers for the $75M jackpot… but the last number was 30 and he had picked 31. Instead of $75M, they got around $8K.

Evelyn didn’t divorce him… but if he had a buck for everybody who earnestly told him “he shoulda bought one with 30 and one with 31,” he might as well have won the jackpot. Thanks, everybody, appreciate it.

I’ve been blessed. I have. Loving wife, great kids, good career. And I know it’s because I started tithing years ago. God doesn’t play the lottery. But he does invite trust. “Test me in this,” he says, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” (Malachi 3:10),

It’s the only place in the Bible that he invites us to put our money where his mouth is. You give Me what I’m asking [10%]…and you see if I don’t come through.

I did. And He did. And then some. Every time things got tight, outta nowhere, some unexpected bonus, raise, windfall.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Not a ham-handed religious pitch. Just how I took a step of faith…Harrison Ford putting a foot out over the crevasse in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade…and how it turned out. Unreal.

But today? Today, I’m retired. But there are so many in need. If I won the lottery, I think I’d give half away…then wait to see wait to see how God answered 🙂

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