Jeffery spent days
quietly contemplating, trying to figure out his dilemma about Lousia. Jeffery knew that he couldn’t live with his
grandparents forever and if he wanted to marry Lousia he needed to come up with
a way to make money so that he could move out on his own. His best conclusion was that you needed to
have money to invest in order to make money.
Since Jeffery was a young boy he had been collecting money in a savings
account; birthdays, holidays, graduation, odd jobs over the years added up and
he had a tiny little nest egg of $2300.
What Jeffery really wanted to do was start his own business. But $2300 was not nearly enough to do that,
he would need ten times that amount to start any reasonable business
venture. Jeffery was so desperate about
it that he began to pray. “God help me
come up with more money.” he would ask.
Finally, one evening
Jeffery had a brilliant idea. If he had
enough faith he could go to the Indian Casino in
Withdrawing his money
from the bank, Jeffery decided to put God to the test “this is how you can
prove to me that you are real, make ma a big winner
today. He convinced his buddy, Ron, to
take him to the casino and with his new found get-rich-quick faith he set off
right away toward making his fortune.
Jeffery figured he would give God an easy way to answer his prayers
first with just one coin on the slot machine.
However, one coin turned into more coins till to his surprised how
quickly the first $200 disappeared. Yet,
Jeffery was not discouraged. He still
had over $2000 left.
Jeffery had been
practicing Blackjack and Poker on the computer in the library and actually won
a time or two but in the library he was not playing for real money and the
computer was not nearly as intimidating as the tables in the casino. He watched for a few hands and decided that
those players were way out of his league.
He checked out the dice game, this was more his style. Picking up the dice he said a little prayer
and with each throw he imagined his ship coming in. At first he was lucky and did well, this
encouraged him to go on. But too soon
his luck ran out, and within a short time so did all his money. At first it didn’t seem possible, he must
have imagined it, it couldn’t be real.
He couldn’t have lost his entire life savings in one day, in a few short
hours, it couldn’t have happened.
Standing there dazed and
dumfounded Ron eventually came to his rescue and found out what had
happened. Trying to snap him out of his
depression, Ron led him out of the building.
Jeffery began to feel like his life was over. He was sweaty and clammy, his hands wouldn’t
stop shaking. Ron was nervous that he
might have low blood sugar or something so he got him something to eat. But Jeffery couldn’t eat.
When he got home he
spent the next two days in bed and would not see anyone, he was
inconsolable. Finally on the third day
Lousia pleaded with him long enough till he let her in his room. She told him, “I made Ron tell me what
happened.” They were quiet for a long
time. Then Lousia spoke up again saying,
“Loosing your lifesavings is not the end of the world.” She paused again for a while, “I wish you
would have told me what you were going to do because I
wouldn’t have let you do it.” She added,
“I don’t believe in gambling, I think it’s Satan’s
counterfeit for a real miracle from God.” All this time Jeffery was angry at
God for disappointing him, so he was curious at Lousia comment about God and
miracles. So he asked, “Don’t you think
God is powerful enough to work a miracle through gambling?” Lousia shook her head, “It isn’t that he’s
not powerful enough, He just doesn’t work that way. God wouldn’t bless you with a miracle at the
expense of other people. For you to win
that means someone else would have to loose.
God works miracles at his expense.
God’s not into money anyway, He is into a completely different kind of
wealth.”
Jeffery asked Lousia to
go home, but he promised her he would see her tomorrow, he said that he had a
lot to think about and just wanted to be alone for a little while longer. So Lousia went home on condition that Jeffery
would get out of bed and come see her in the morning. After she left, Jeffery prayed again, “God do
you still have a miracle for me? I need
one now more than before.”
Discussion Questions: