Money & Finances
I buy lottery tickets most weeks and tell myself it is harmless, but honestly I am hoping for a way out. Is that wrong, or just wishful?
“A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.”
The proverbs draw a sharp line between wealth that accumulates through faithful work and wealth someone lunges at. The Hebrew behind hastening carries the sense of pushing, of forcing a result out of its proper sequence. The warning is not that money is dirty. It is that the shortcut tends to cost you something that was never listed on the price tag, usually in character rather than cash.
“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”
Paul is writing to Timothy about false teachers in Ephesus who had turned faith into a money making venture. The trap he describes is not being rich but the wanting itself, the fixed determination that arriving at wealth will finally solve things. He calls it a snare, which is exactly how a weekly ticket works: the hope stays alive precisely because it is never resolved.
A path forward
Add up what you have spent on tickets over the past twelve months and look at the real figure. Guessing is what keeps the habit comfortable.
Redirect that exact amount into savings or toward one debt for the next three months, so the money moves toward the way out rather than away from it.
Ask God honestly in prayer what you are really hoping a win would fix, and then talk that through with someone you trust. The fantasy is usually about escape from something specific, and that thing deserves attention.
Closing verse
“Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.”
- Proverbs 23:4-5
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