Praying to win the lottery?

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James_2_24

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Is this immoral?

What if you want to win the lottery for the following reasons:
  1. To help build a church and Catholic apolgetics instution
  2. live comfortably so as to spend all ones time to raise
    a good Catholic family
 
James_2:24:
Is this immoral?

What if you want to win the lottery for the following reasons:
  1. To help build a church and Catholic apolgetics instution
  2. live comfortably so as to spend all ones time to raise
    a good Catholic family
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I don’t find anything immoral about praying to win the lottery, whether you want to build a church or just pay off your debt and live a life of comfort. You can pray for whatever you like; it is always up to God to say yea or nay, regardless of what you ask for.
 
Hey yeah I do that. Was discerning winning lottery tickets today. Spent $2 and won $2.

I tell you its going to take me along time to win enough money to repair the roof at church and raise a family.
 
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juno24:
I don’t find anything immoral about praying to win the lottery, whether you want to build a church or just pay off your debt and live a life of comfort. You can pray for whatever you like; it is always up to God to say yea or nay, regardless of what you ask for.
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Well I half agree/half disagree there…

I agree that we can pray for anything we like, but I also believe it can be outright immoral to pray for CERTAIN things.

Allow me to give extreme examples to drive the point home:

I can pray for:
  1. The death of someone I despise.
  2. For sexual relations with a person for whom I lust.
you get the point. My point with the question about the lottery was that I was praying for money. And we know that greed and love of money is a grave sin. To pray for money for the sake of having money, I believe can be sinful if one loves money too much.

Other prayers can be just petty. For example, praying for a BMW when you already have cars that can get you from point A to point B. I believe this can be sinful in that it is love of a material thing and unnecessary. There are people dying in the world for the faith, and to pray for a BMW… i think would be a lack of charity.
 
It would be nice to:
Pay off debts
Help out the parish
Start a Catholic based business
Donate to worthy Catholic charities
Start and own a Catholic Radio station
Start over and live not above my means

that all depends, if God believes I’m worthy. :gopray2:
 
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Bill_A:
Hey yeah I do that. Was discerning winning lottery tickets today. Spent $2 and won $2.

I tell you its going to take me along time to win enough money to repair the roof at church and raise a family.
Click to expand...
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
 
hub discourages buying lottery tickets which he considers a stupidity tax, so I have stopped making hypothetical promises to God about my hypothetical winnings.
 
James_2:24:
Well I half agree/half disagree there…

I agree that we can pray for anything we like, but I also believe it can be outright immoral to pray for CERTAIN things.

Allow me to give extreme examples to drive the point home:

I can pray for:
  1. The death of someone I despise.
  2. For sexual relations with a person for whom I lust.
you get the point. My point with the question about the lottery was that I was praying for money. And we know that greed and love of money is a grave sin. To pray for money for the sake of having money, I believe can be sinful if one loves money too much.

Other prayers can be just petty. For example, praying for a BMW when you already have cars that can get you from point A to point B. I believe this can be sinful in that it is love of a material thing and unnecessary. There are people dying in the world for the faith, and to pray for a BMW… i think would be a lack of charity.
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Point taken. Although I am not sure that the act of praying is ever in itself immoral, even if the things prayed for are. If what you are praying for is immoral, then you have bigger issues to deal with than the prayer.
This topic reminds me of a story my roommate told me. She used to pray to win the lottery, or the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, or well, ANY big money contest. She entered them, bought tickets, what-not. She prayed using the same ideas that you described-- “Lord, if you let me win I will make sure people are taken care of financially; I’ll donate a lot of it to my church; and I promise to be a good steward of your money.” Of course, she never won a cent. Well, as she tells the story, one day she actually got an answer to her prayers. She had just entered the PCH sweepstakes again, put the stamp on the envelope, and put it in the mail.Several days later, she picked up the mail and there was her entry, returned because there was no postage on it. She took that as her answer-- that God was saying, “No I am not going to let you win; you are not doing those things you promised with what you already have, what makes you think I am going to give you more?!”

Have a great day!
Judy
 
First and formost are my prayers for MY financial well being and I aint gonna stop praying for a huge lottery win til it happens… I have made very holy promises to God as to what I would do for the Church and people in general in exchange to live not necessarily a materialistic life, but one where BILLS , clothing food and shelter would NEVER have to be worried about again by me… and in return, I would do the same for as many people as I could…sounds VERY MORAL to me.
 
James_2_24 said:
Is this immoral?

What if you want to win the lottery for the following reasons:
  1. To help build a church and Catholic apolgetics instution
  2. live comfortably so as to spend all ones time to raise
    a good Catholic family
Click to expand...
I think to answer this you must questions your reasoning and your motivation. Do you have a drive to win to build this and apogetics institution, or if you won would you do this for God?

Do you not raise a good Catholic family now? 😉 I’m sure you do, but I think you get both points.

Best of Luck!
 
This ancient thread reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. A man prayed every day to win the lottery, without winning a cent. One day, he asked God why his prayer was not granted. God said to him, “Do me a favor, son. Buy a ticket!”

Mega Millions is now $250 million. I will buy one ticket and pray. If God wants me to have any of it, He only needs one ticket.

Betsy
 
baltobetsy said:
This ancient thread reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. A man prayed every day to win the lottery, without winning a cent. One day, he asked God why his prayer was not granted. God said to him, “Do me a favor, son. Buy a ticket!”

Mega Millions is now $250 million. I will buy one ticket and pray. If God wants me to have any of it, He only needs one ticket.

Betsy
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If God wants me to have any of it I will find the winning ticket on the ground.
 
Didn’t anyone here watch Bruce Almighty? That is the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread… go watch it if you haven’t!
 
I think that God cares as much about you winning the lottery as he does about your favorite sports team praying to win a game.

Is there anything wrong with praying for it? Maybe not? Again, like the others have said it comes down to motivation. Would winning the lottery bring you closer to God? Would having all that money help you get to heaven? We play the lottery, but I cannot remember ever praying to win. If we would win we would do great things with the money, if not, oh well.
 
I pray to win the lottery, and I always include, “If it be your will, Lord.” So far his will has been done 100% of the time, and I’m still a million dollars shy of being a millionaire; however, I have Christ which is worth way more than anything man can offer.
 
James_2_24 said:
Well I half agree/half disagree there…

I agree that we can pray for anything we like, but I also believe it can be outright immoral to pray for CERTAIN things.

Allow me to give extreme examples to drive the point home:

I can pray for:
  1. The death of someone I despise.
  2. For sexual relations with a person for whom I lust.
you get the point. My point with the question about the lottery was that I was praying for money. And we know that greed and love of money is a grave sin. To pray for money for the sake of having money, I believe can be sinful if one loves money too much.

Other prayers can be just petty. For example, praying for a BMW when you already have cars that can get you from point A to point B. I believe this can be sinful in that it is love of a material thing and unnecessary. There are people dying in the world for the faith, and to pray for a BMW… i think would be a lack of charity.
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Good points made. It’s probably not a question of morality but whether the prayer is valid or not. If I’m praying for a team to win, that means, in effect, I’m praying that the other side loses. Thus, it should not be a valid prayer. I believe prayers are valid if they are of thanksgiving, of worship, ask for forgiveness, daily necessities, and good health. Those that basically rely on someone else to lose in order for you to gain are basically, in my opinion, very petty and most childish.
 
WilmaORTEGA said:
Why was Faithful 2 Rome banned?
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Welcome to the forums, Wilma. One of the rules is that we are not permitted to discuss moderator actions, one of which is banning members. Faithful 2 Rome was banned a couple of years ago - no one remembers now, anyway. I’m quite sure it had nothing to do with this thread.

Betsy
 
James_2_24 said:
Is this immoral?

What if you want to win the lottery for the following reasons:
  1. To help build a church and Catholic apolgetics instution
  2. live comfortably so as to spend all ones time to raise
    a good Catholic family
Click to expand...
What would you think if God replied,

"Son, you don’t need to win the lottery to help build a church and help Catholic apologetics.

You don’t need to win the lottery to live comfortably and have time to raise a good Catholic family.

I’ll give you what you need, and nobody NEEDS $250 million dollars."

🙂
 
baltobetsy said:
Welcome to the forums, Wilma. One of the rules is that we are not permitted to discuss moderator actions, one of which is banning members. Faithful 2 Rome was banned a couple of years ago - no one remembers now, anyway. I’m quite sure it had nothing to do with this thread.

Betsy
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Okay,thank you Betsy.
 
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