Godliness, Contentment and a $123 million lottery

Deep inside, all of us want to win the lottery.

Don't lie now, like you are one of those super-spiritual people who don't care and would rather stay in your current financial situation. Wait till your best friend wins it and then see how you feel.

Last week I was tempted to buy a lottery ticket and almost did. I didn't buy it not because I thought it was spiritual or morally wrong, but rather i was low on cash (you have to buy them in cash even if it is only a dollar, so the state prevents people from getting in copious amounts debt, which people in the U.S. seem to have no problem doing anyway) I also had thoughts of "how high can this thing go?" and "does it matter if I play today? the lottery will be around forever, so I can play it in a week when i have some cash, you know, buy 5 tickets or so and see the run on my luck"

While I was smelling the fumes of the dirty 87 gas being pumped in my 1999 mustang; thinking about my barely empty wallet, thoughts began to drift by me; like the small flock birds in the distance that were heading where I wanted to go for the winter, a scripture came to me "Godliness and Contentment is great gain" -1 Tim. 6:6
Contentment?! that thought has come up in my mind only one time this entire year, you guessed it--Thanksgiving. Wow, so God doesn't lie and as we've seen in the numerous accounting scandals in the last decade, numbers do actually lie; that scripture hit me,striking like lightning with conviction, sparking a realization of contentment and thankfulness with everything God has blessed me with: my car, my family, being able to be a twin to a greatest brother on earth and so on..

Then I realized I had great gain.

I was blessed beyond measure. It didn't have to take a 7 month hospital stay and caregiving to prove it and be thankful. I had all I needed, it was in me Jesus Christ (who supplies all my needs, and in Him eternity is in me).
That deep, deep inside me was this treasure, a masterpiece God is sculpting away at, that I don't have to create but as Michelangelo chiseled David out of the stone, God is eliminating all the things out of me that don't fit into this unique work so I can be that masterpiece-one that the museums won't sell (Starry Night, Mona Lisa, etc..), the seven wonders of the world that can't be removed but marveled at- and that I was rich. Godliness now accompanied with contentment that God had to cut through the Amazon-like jungle of our distracting, greedy world to show that I am blessed with something beyond what an air chamber and 6 correct balls could offer me.
Realizing, at that gas station, through a guy God used named Timothy; I won the lottery that night.

Not because I picked the numbers, but because God picked me and loved me first- worth a lot more than a $123 million dollars, that's here now and gone tomorrow- like those black birds still gathering in the air heading south, and as the gas pump sharply & harshly stopped;
I knew I just became the richest man in the world.