The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” (I Corinthians 10:13 NLT)
Two elementary children are walking to school in 1961. There was no bus picking you up. You walked to the school in your district, be it across the street or a few blocks. One of the children spots a dime laying on the ground. The child is ecstatic about the find. Who wouldn’t be back in those days? The excitement is easy to comprehend when you consider you could buy two name brand candy bars for a dime. Or you could buy a 12-ounce bottle of coke, a real coke, not a generic, imitation, want-to-be coke. If you were less selfish thinking, you could buy a 12-ounce box of corn flakes for a few pennies over two dimes. The surplus bakery store that the children passed, a store adjacent to the factory that made the bakery items, would sale you two bags of broken cookies or broken pieces of peanut brittle for the grand sum of a dime. I know that some of you reading this will look up the value of a dime in terms of todays currency value, using inflation calculations or comparisons to downplay the significance of the prices I have reported from way back in ancient history, 1961. But let me encourage you to stay with the story, okay?
As the two children walked on in a state of bliss with their one dime, they noticed a couple of more dimes just a few steps further. At this point the children are walking with their heads down, looking intently for more dimes. Their searching did not come up empty handed. It was not in vain. They found groups of shining dimes and eventually a paper bag with a small hole in it with several dimes. One child asks the other, “What shall we do?” “Should we keep it or turn it in at the office?” “Who would know besides us?” One child says, “I think someone busted a phone in a nearby phone booth and in their haste dropped the dimes.” The other child says, “Their loss, but our gain.” The one child counters, “But wouldn’t this be filthy money since it was stolen?” The other child says, “Who will know where we got the money?” The debate went on as they tried to reach an agreement of what to do. Neither child budged from their position. If they were to take a vote, it would be a deadlock. They needed to hear another voice, perhaps by another passerby, or possibly the voice of their Sunday School teacher, “Thou shall not steal.”
Today, you are going to cast the deciding vote. You insert yourself in the story and persuade or dissuade these children in regard to what to do with the dime. Yes, you are the deciding vote. What are you going to do?
Now before I close, let me alert you that you are going to have to make some similar choices today in real time, and in the days going forward in your life. It won’t involve a dime, but you will have to make the deciding voice on what you will do. I suggest you depend on the voice of God before you cast your vote. Have a great Friday! Be blessed!
“But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.” (Micah 6:8 The Message Bible)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King