You might have won the lottery if......

You might have won the lottery in life if....

 I saw this story on ABC's Good Morning America show this morning, (2.24.15}:

Marie Holmes, the 26-year-old single mother from North Carolina who was one of three $188 million winners of a $564 million jackpot, says she ran outside and screamed when she realized she won.

“I said, ‘We made it!,'" Holmes recalled today on "Good Morning America."

Holmes, of Shallotte, North Carolina, was fixing her children breakfast the day after the Feb. 11, drawing (t)hen she saw the winning numbers on Facebook.

“I just happened to check Facebook and my friend had a post up with the numbers on it so I looked at the numbers and I had my numbers in my hand and I was like these are the same numbers on my ticket,” Holmes said on “GMA.” “Then I started screaming and stuff and my kids ran away from me and said I scared them.”

Holmes said her mom, who purchased the winning ticket for her on her way to church, was the first person she called. Once they double-checked the numbers on her mom’s phone, Holmes had the exact reaction you would imagine a newly-minted multimillionaire would have.

“I started screaming outside,” Holmes said.

While her mom was convinced because she saw the numbers in person, Holmes says the rest of her family did not believe she had won the $564.1 million jackpot, the fifth largest lottery prize in U.S. history.

“I called my sister and I told her…she was like, ‘Stop playing with me. I’m asleep. You didn’t hit the lottery. Send me a picture,’” Holmes said. “So I sent her a picture and then I called my uncle and told him the same thing. He told me, ‘Man I’m at work don’t be playing with me.’”

Holmes had been living with six other people –- including her four children, ages 9 months to 7 years –- prior to her lottery win.

“I don’t have to worry about staying with my mom anymore. I can have my own place,” she said. "We're going to have our own everything."

“They can have their own house and stuff so it’s going to impact not only mine but the people around me," Holmes said of her family.

Holmes accepted a check yesterday for $188 million from North Carolina Education Lottery officials. After taxes are taken out of her lump-sum payment of $127 million, Holmes will take home $87.9 million.

“I still don’t believe it,” Holmes said. “I don’t know when I’m actually going to believe it.”

Holmes says she plans to travel, put away money for her children’s education and use the money to continue her own education in nursing.

She also plans to donate money to her church and to organizations associated with cerebral palsy, the neurological disorder that afflicts her 7-year-old son.

“He can get all the help he needs,” Holmes said of her eldest child. “He gets one-on-one time now but he can get more help.”

Our Father in heaven.

Hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we everyone who has sinned against us.

Lead us not into temptation.

This is a prayer Jesus gave when asked to teach His disciples how to pray.  It teaches us how to pray and what to pray for.  It is not the only prayer, but it is a good prayer.

We need to have the right kind of fear of God.  Before I got to know Father through Jesus I had the wrong kind of fear of God I think.  Back in those days I thought God was trying to catch me sinning so He could keep me out of heaven.  Through Jesus I have seen that God, our Father, is doing all He can to get us into heaven.  He is also trying to help me have a good life while here on earth.

The right kind of fear, it seems to me, is the idea of respect or honor.  It is to "Hallow" the name of our great Father in heaven who sent Jesus to earth to be our Savior. 

About three thousand years ago there were nations that had as their god a "golden calf" or some other object made of wood or something else.

 Jesus presented God as "Father in heaven."

Our loving Father meets our ultimate and basic needs.  He provides food and water and shelter and help when we need it to survive until our time on earth is over.

He also is willing to forgive our sins equal to how we forgive everyone who sins against us.  This is a concept that frees us from a wrong kind of fear.  God is full of compassion and mercy and slow to anger as presented by Jesus and by other great writers.

Putting this phrase in the prayer helps to us to forgive everyone whom we hold anything against so that we can receive deep in our hearts the mercy that heals us.  We need to have a freedom from the wrong kind of fear of other people.   We need the freedom to be who we are.  We need the freedom to enjoy life among God's creatures.

So that is the summary of what to pray for, but what about how to pray. 

Pray boldly.  Pray persistently.  Pray in a way that rouses the attention of God.   Keep on seeking what you believe you are meant to have.  Keep on knocking on doors.  Getting finished with a "no" gets you to the "yes".

Back to the news story of the lady who won the lottery.  Keep in mind she now has the money to say many more "Yeses".

And though life will certainly change in some ways for Holmes’s four children, she says she plans to keep things as normal as possible.

“They’re not getting everything they want,” Holmes said. "I was told no so you’re going to get told no. You have got to learn.”

“You’re not going to get everything. I can buy you everything but I’m not,” she said of her lesson to her kids.

Keep on asking.  God wants His children to have the Holy Spirit and this means that when we ask for this good gift He is going to say yes.  

Why?  Because this is a good gift.  Good fathers give good gifts that help to develop good kids.

So if we want to ask our Father in heaven for good gifts we should go for it.  He is richer than those who give out lottery checks.  

You might have won the lottery if...

If you are a child of God you can be sure He will say yes to all your needs and many wants that wouldn't harm you.

You might have won the lottery if...

You have chosen Jesus as your leader in life for He teaches us what to pray for and how to pray.

Larry  Wishard

2.24.15