Friday 5 November 2010

You Can't Buy Happiness!

These are the words of a retired welder who, after winning $10.9m basically gave it all away to "churches, fire departments, cemeteries, the Red Cross and hospitals'".

After giving some to their own family, they just put the money ($10.2m) where the need was!

Why?

The answer is shocking and so counter-cultural that it's (for some) outrageous and yet for many others, absolutely beautiful:

"We haven't bought one thing. That's because there is nothing that we need."

I encounter so many people who tell me that they only do the lottery to help others and that, of course, the Church would be a major beneficiary should God just happen to select them as the recipients of the treble-rollover of £m.

In a world where possessions possess us and the need to have the large LCD screen (what? You've got plasma! HD!! 3D!!! 175"!!!!), the latest number plate (what do you mean it's changed again!) and all the other entrapments of life (no they're not essentials) it is so refreshing to see someone so normal that they're weird when considered against the consumerism of our world.

A wise thought for the day:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"

You can't buy happiness - but you can accept it as a free gift from the hands of Christ.

Pax

No comments: