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One of my mother's cousins won a lottery in Montana a couple of days ago. He won $1,000,000. That's a lot of money, but not really the "big" money by today's standards. My mom emailed me, my brother, her sisters and their kids with the news and one of my aunts replied with a very telling sentence. Paraphrasing, it said, "I'm happy for him, but I can't call him and tell him or else he'll think I'm wanting his money." I had the same thought.

In fact, winning the lottery is among the last things I would want. Sounds pretty noble, doesn't it? It's not. I don't want it because I think winning a lot of money would be such a huge headache that I'd probably end up ruining everything I have now, losing my loved ones, being worried about every "friend" old and -- especially -- new. What peace would I have with even $1,000,000, much less $30 or $100 million? People would want to "borrow" but probably wouldn't worry about paying you back, after all, they only borrowed $500,000 and you have $30,000,000! But you won't have very much after taxes, the three new homes and 20 "friends" and relatives (including the ones who are distantly linked, they may not even be primates) borrowing. But you will have a trail of resentful people if you don't "loan" out the money.

I don't even want to earn that much money. I know that if I somehow managed to earn and store away $2,000,000 over the next couple of years, I would shift into "worry about not losing all of my money" mode. I'd rather have just enough every day, every week, every year. Just enough is just a little bit less than I want, but more than I need. God has His spreadsheet pretty well set up.

The bible says that we can't serve two masters. This is true in all cases, but double true about money. Most people think Matthew 6:24 (see below) is about debt, meaning that you shouldn't get into debt because you will be serving another master, the lender. But it is also about having too much money. How reliant on God will you be when you win the lottery? How much more worried will you be about the money than you will be about God? If your spouse wants to "loan" money to her sister and you don't, will that spell the end of your marriage? What about when you want to loan to your Dad and your spouse doesn't?

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." -- Jesus, in Matthew 6:24 (NIV)