Hatred stirs up
conflicts, but love covers all offenses. - Proverbs 10:12 HCSB
A couple of weeks ago I watched a story online about a man
who had donated a bag of clothes and shoes to a Goodwill store in Texas.
Unbeknownst to the man, his wife had hidden their life savings of $3300 in one
of the shoes he had donated. A worker at the Goodwill found the money in the
shoe when he started to arrange the items on shelves. The worker reported his
find to his manager and they set the money aside, just in case someone came
looking for it. A few days later the wife of the man who donated the shoes came
into the Goodwill store and was able to claim the money after she answered a
few questions.
That’s the way things are supposed to work, right? Somebody
finds something that may have been lost and they set it aside so the proper
owner can claim it. Yes, that’s the way it’s supposed to work, but we all know
this world isn’t perfect and is filled will things/acts/sins that shouldn’t
happen. No one was with the Goodwill worker when he found the money and he
could have easily just put it in his pocket and no one would have known about
it.
But, he didn’t. He did the right thing and in the online
comments of this story many people were praising him for his honesty and
integrity. One commenter left a message saying “May God bless you for your
honesty.”, and another commenter’s response to that message puzzled me and
started the gears going in my head. They responded by saying something along
the lines of, “Keep God out of this. God has nothing to do with it. How do you
know that the person wouldn’t be offended by you asking your God to bless him?”
The response confused
me. How could anyone be offended by a heartfelt sentiment of good wishes for
their well being? Even if you don’t believe in the God, deity, spirit, concept,
etc. that the person is using to express their desire for your well being; you
can still accept their sentiment in the spirit in which it was given. Why would you look for offense where none was
intended?
Those were the thoughts and questions going through my head
when I started seeing a certain sentiment being shared on the internet. It was
a sentiment that I have seen each Christmas season for many years. In fact, I
must admit, it is a sentiment that I once believed myself until I did a little
research on the history of Christmas (which is a great subject for another post).
What is that sentiment?
You’ll have to wait for my next post, because this post is
already getting long. . .
