The Ballestero Blog

The Night I Almost Won The Lottery

The winning numbers for the Hoosier Lottery were being announced. The lady reported each number as it was randomly drawn. “15, 6, 21, 18, 7” then she paused as the Powerball number came up…  “3,” she finally said.

That’s when I woke up. It was five o’clock on a Saturday morning. I’d never played the lottery before, let alone dreamed about the lottery. This was kind of weird.

I had prayed about a money situation in out church the night before. It was true; we sure would breathe easier if we had a few more nickels in the church piggy bank.

But why had I dreamt about the lottery? That wasn’t an option, surely. Was God using His foreknowledge to give me the winning numbers for Saturday’s Lottery? Was God trying to help me win the $110 million?

But I’d have to buy a lottery ticket first. I couldn’t do that. No, God doesn’t work like that. I knew that, but then, why did I dream this dream? What was the purpose? It was so real it had awakened me.

The numbers were very clear and vivid in my brain; 15, 6, 21,18, 7 and the Powerball number was 3, I couldn’t forget that. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. So I wrote them all down on a piece of paper sitting on my nightstand and went back to sleep.

At 8am, still not sure why, I put the piece of paper with the numbers in my wallet and left for the Memorial Hospital. I had a full day of hospital visits and other calls to make. I was gone most of the day.

I sat at the breakfast table the next morning eating a Danish and drinking coffee while I scanned the front page of the South Bend Tribune’s Sunday Edition. At the bottom of the front page, the winning numbers of Saturday’s lottery were printed in bold letters.

The Winning Hoosier Lottery Numbers!! I sat my coffee cup down and reached for my wallet. I held my breath as I unfolded the paper. A sinking feeling came over me. I hadn’t bought a Lottery ticket. I hadn’t had time to even think about the Lottery. I’d been busy all day. Even if these numbers matched, I still wouldn’t win because I didn’t buy a ticket. Now what was God going to do? He tried to help.

I laid the newspaper flat on the table where I could see the numbers and laid the unfolded piece of paper beside it so I could verify the matching numbers.

Then I begin to grin. A smile crept across my face by the time I got to the second number. I was laughing out loud when I finished reading all the numbers.  When I read the Powerball number my shoulders were shaking with laughter. I actually wiped a tear of laughter from one eye.

Not one number matched. Nothing! Nada! Zero! Zilch! Zip! I couldn’t wait to tell the church Sunday morning about my crazy dream.

For as long as any of us can remember, there are some that believe in every dream they have. It is as though they are so spiritual, that all their dreams are prophecies from God.

Face it. There are some important dreams that come from God. Those we should never ignore. But not every dream we dream is from God. Some times we have dreams that come from Pizza Hut or Taco Bell.

A good rule of thumb about dreams is not to get up and say, “God gave me a dream.” Rather, just tell a dream as a dream. Just because we had a dream doesn’t mean it came from God. Actually most of our dreams do not come from God.

Am I preaching against dreams? No, don’t be foolish. But I am sincere in warning all of us that every dream we get is not from God, especially if the dream attempts to lead us away from Him.

Lesson I have learned: If I have a dream… and I can see it’s not from God, I just tell it as a dream. Then I laugh at myself if it’s funny.