What if you win the lottery, so what…you still will have no wisdom to manage money. If you gain something without growing into it, you will find it slipping through your fingers.

Of what use is money in the hand of a fool, since he has no desire to get wisdom? (Proverbs 17:16).

To see this, consider what happens to people who actually have won a lottery and received the amount in one large lump sum. Studies which follow their lives reveal that within ten years they typically are financially broke, have had extramarital affairs, gotten divorced; many have become addicted to drugs and have destroyed most of their relationships with family and friends. Sadly a significant number of them will commit suicide.

I know a businessman who once said, “We will not win the lottery. If you see money falling out of the sky, it is counterfeit; don’t pick it up!” Pastors and church leaders can fall into lottery thinking with their churches. They will set their eye on the “big fish” to build their churches. They become event oriented; thinking that if they can just have the right speaker or music group it will cause the church to grow.  Events don’t grow churches, consistent, diligent work and prayer does. An event will draw a crowd for a week-end but without day-to-day nurture and outreach the crowds will quickly disappear. If you build systematically, God will bring the growth. The answer is not out there somewhere; it is right in front of you with the step forward God wants you to take today.

Other pastors may think if someone in a wheelchair is healed, it will cause their church to grow. This fixation on a spectacular event can immobilize them from doing the things that will make the church grow and maybe eventually see a person in the wheelchair healed. God’s normal way is the way of gradual, sure, systematic growth and maturity.