Mavis Wanczyck is a lucky woman, judging purely by the laws of chance. She's won $758 million (£591 million) on America's Powerball Lottery, the largest single-winner prize in US history.
The 53-year-old has quit her job at a medical centre. Asked how she would celebrate, she laughed: 'I'm going to go and hide in my bed.'
So far her plans are limited to paying off the loan on the car she bought. No doubt other uses for the money will occur to her.
The whole question of whether Christians should approve of lotteries is a very vexed on. On the whole, in the UK at least, Catholics and Anglicans take it for granted there's nothing particularly wrong with gambling in moderation. Traditional Nonconformists, of whom I am one, are much more censorious. I'm not a fundamentalist on the subject, though I generally prefer to avoid it.
But leaving that aside, what about Mavis Wanczyck?
On the whole, though Puritanically-inclined people like me might like it to be otherwise, vast winnings don't seem to wreck people's lives. A classic study by Roy Kaplan found that 'overall, winners were well-adjusted, secure and generally happy from the experience'. However, other studies have shown an initial boost to happiness, followed by a return to pre-win levels. Business Insider quotes psychologist Robert Puff, who wrote in Psychology Today: 'Some of us have our thermostat set to happy. Some are set to depressed. Meanwhile, others are somewhere in between.
'When we experience a major event, say winning the lottery or becoming paralyzed, our thermostat may temporarily swing up or down. But over time, it returns to its usual setting.'
This indicates something very important. People who are rich, for whatever reason, are no different from people who are poor. Their riches can buy them all sorts of things – including better health – and relieve them from worries about many things. But money can't change who they really are.
What it might do is reveal it. Because when we have no money our choices are limited. The more options we have, the more we're faced with making decisions that matter, for ourselves and for other people.
In the Western world, our society is richer and more advanced than at any time in history. As individuals we're no happier than people in far poor regions of the world, yet we're conditioned by everything we see around us, in every channel of communication, to desire riches because they'll make us happy. Mavis Wanczyck is an advertiser's dream: an ordinary woman really can have it all.
In reality, of course, that's not true. It's not wrong to want to be free from care or to have a little luxury. But we're fooling ourselves if we think it will fundamentally change us. We're still faced with questions about how to live, how to care, whom to worship and whom to love. And if anything, some of those questions at least become more complicated the more resources we have. How much good that huge lottery win could do in the world! And how on earth would we decide to use it?
In the end, rich or poor, there's no substitute for character – character, as Christians believe, formed on our knees before God, engrossed in his word and committed to his people. It's character that determines what we do with what we have. And our prayer should not be for a lottery win. Rather, as Proverbs says, it should be for a happy medium: 'Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say, "Who is the Lord?" Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God' (Proverbs 30: 8-9.
We often pray for the poor. But we should pray for Mavis Wanczyck, and for other rich people. They need it too.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
