Friday, January 7, 2011

A Costly Gift

Sometimes around Christmas I'll receive some gifts of appreciation from my clients. One particular client is a person gifted with a great intellect, a compassionate heart, and a sincere faith. But due to setbacks in his life he is very financially challenged. I know how small of a living space he lives in (smaller then most of your bedrooms), how much money he lives on, and how he doesn't have enough to take care of some of his most basic needs.

He surprised me recently by giving me a Christmas card with a Tim Horton's gift card in it. I was very moved by this gift. You see, it was the costliest gift I'd received this Christmas. It wasn't a lot but it was a huge gift. How so you might ask? What this man had freely given me was a much larger percentage of his income then any of the gifts anyone else had got me this Christmas. Wow. I was greatly humbled and greatly blessed.

His generosity reminded me of this passage:

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

1 comment:

Elayne said...

A touching story Mark. This Christmas I decided to worry less about material gifts although I gave those as well, but concentrated more on the gift of time. As I focused on the people in my life they kept coming at the most inopportune times. Each time though I decided to leave what I was doing to spend time with my friends. I did a presentation at a meeting this week and asked what each person would say if someone were to say to them "What can I do for you?" The 1st person to respond said "I have never had anyone ask me that question". I could hardly believe my ears. I know how special it feels to have someone ask me what they can do for me. Like your friends gift to you the gift of time is a very precious gift but I'm afraid it might be rather rare. Yet it really is something we can all afford to give. Your story reminded me again.