A dozen city employees in Piqua, Ohio recently pooled their resources together and won $207 million dollars in the mega millions lottery. This caught my attention because I saw a billboard advertising it the other day and was astounded at the figure. $207,000,000. That's a lot of cabbage.
I've never been a proponent of playing the lottery. I don't like the odds. According to The Motley Fool's column in today's Augusta Chronicle, the chances of winning the California Lotto Jackpot are approximately one in 18 million. If you bought 50 tickets per week, you ought to win once every 6923 years. Would you bet me a dollar that I can flip a coin and get 24 heads in a row? That's the likelihood of winning the lottery.
The lottery has been called "a poor man's tax" or "a tax on people who can't do math." I don't frown on those who play it. I just don't think it's wise stewardship. Statistics say that I'm three times more likely to be killed in a car accident on the way to buy a lottery ticket than to win.
While it's fun to imagine what we could do with $207 million, the lottery also feeds our greed. That's the danger of it. We have to be careful not to allow the dream of getting rich quick to destroy our satisfaction with our current situation. Jesus spoke about the dangers of worrying about the material things of this world. Read about it here.
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