I'm going to win the lotterie

My friend in France, David Porter, has written a wonderful article
this month for his blog COFFEE STAINS. There's a powerful message
of hope that all need to hear. David is an amazing writer. You'll enjoy this
jmt

Coffee Stains
David Porter
http://www.davidscoffeestains.com/
January 14, 2011
Hautvillers, France
I'm Going To Win the Lotterie!" ?
Lately there's been an advertisement on the television here in France
for the lottery. One couple wins and takes a trip around the world.
Another man buys a big house and car with his winnings and still
another one purchases the business he works for (but keeps his boss).
You see what happens when you win the lottery!
Yeah!
The eminent "philosopher" P.T. Barnum once said something
tremendously insightful, "There's a sucker born every minute."
The cartoon cat, Garfield, wisely observed, "It's amazing some of
the things that people would rather have than money." A lottery
ticket for example.
Chances of winning the lottery rank right up there with receiving a
personal email from the Man in the Moon. Yet people spend hundreds of
millions of dollars each year hoping to win the lottery.
And there are a lot of happy winners of the lottery—the sponsors
mostly. They grin widely as the suckers—excuse me—"players"
line up.
Justin Wilson once told the story of a man who raffled off a dead
mule. No one knew it was dead, though, except the owner. He sold 400
tickets at $2 a ticket. Minus $20 for printing the tickets and $50 for
the original price of the mule before he died, the lottery sponsor
made $730 on his project.
"Bet you made a lot of people mad," someone observed.
"No, just one. And I gave him his money back."
Humans play the lottery because they love to hope.
There's at least three kinds of hope. There's wild and crazy hope.
People don't pay $5 to win the lottery. They pay $5 to hope like
crazy. And at the end all they had was the thrill of hoping a minute
and the worthless lottery ticket in their hand.
This kind of hope can eventually sour you on the hoping business.
Then there's hard-work hope. These people want to accomplish
something in life so they put everything they have into it. Their body
sweats, they deprive themselves to reach their goal, but during the
whole process they're buoyed by the image of what they hope to
accomplish.
This is a lot more substantial than the lottery. Says the New York
Times in a New Year's Eve editorial, "Who can live without fresh
intentions, new purposes? Who does not welcome a chance to start over,
if only on a new page of the calendar? Life goes on, but it goes on so
much better with hope and renewal and recommitment."
Then there's God-based hope. Hope in this case is joined at the hip
with faith. This is not an "I-hope-I-win-the-lottery" hope or an
"I-hope-I-catch-some-fish" hope. It goes beyond a "work hard for
your dreams" hope.
It's a powerful conviction in the center of us that God's promises
are true.
He's promised forgiveness of sins so I repent and put my confidence
in Jesus.
He's promised eternal life and I'm living down here with the
conviction that something even better is on the way.
He's promised to come back and I live my life, influenced by the
promise.
He's promised to take care of me so when I'm in need I turn to Him
with my whole heart and present my needs to Him.
He promised He would never leave me or forsake me so I have hope, even
in the darkest situations.
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in
him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy
Spirit." (Rom. 15:13, NIV)
"Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with
peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving
energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!" writes Eugene
Peterson in the Message.
Hope in Christ is even more tangible and powerful than hard-working
human hope, though these two are often linked and honestly, where you
find hope in Christ you find a hand-working "hoper" living his life
with the joy of what he will receive.
And hope in the lottery?
If you believe in that I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like
to sell you.

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