He was an old frail man who would timidly walk back and forth outside our job site. He carries a small sack with him, which he fills up with bits of scrap metals he could find carelessly lying on the ground. Me and the workers got used to seeing him every morning waiting for any piece of scrap metal that would fly off the construction site.
As a scavenger, every scrap you find brings you a step closer to surviving another day.
One morning, our construction workers had finished demolishing a large concrete wall. I notice the old man patiently waiting for the workers to finish clearing out the debris just so he could pick up whatever scrap is left.
All concrete walls have a lot of steel bars embedded into it. So, when we demolished that large concrete wall, the workers were able to pull out a lot of scrap metals. Some were about 6 feet long.
Then I had an idea.
I asked the workers to collect all the scrap metals, bundle them up together, and give it to the old man.
He was speechless.
A few moments ago, he was just hoping to pick-up a few scrap pieces to put in his rugged sack. But now, he is frantically figuring out how to carry all these huge bundles of steel bars while containing his unbelief of what had just happened.
Then the most amazing thing happened.
He hurriedly walked towards me. I could see he was searching his pocket for anything he could find.
And then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket and offered it to me.
With both hands holding it, he stooped lowly and begged me to get the whole pack. He was saying thank you the best way he could.
I know his pockets are all empty. And that pack of cigarettes is all that he has.
I didn’t take the pack from him. I just told him to accept what we gave him as a gift. No need to pay for it.
That encounter taught me a great lesson about receiving gifts.
A good gift is something given to us freely, without cost.
An even better gift is something given to us freely, and also something we cannot afford ourselves.
But the greatest gift of all, is something given to us freely, something we cannot afford ourselves, and something we don’t deserve.
It is Grace.
And how do we respond to it?
Just like a scavenger with only a pack of cigarettes, we offer everything we got.
Not because we need to pay for it.
But as a sign of gratitude for something we received.
Comments