Advent: Unexpected Gifts...

Week Two: Gifts for God's People...

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Romans 11:33-36

A young man stepped off a city bus with his cell phone in his hand. As he finished his text and started to put the phone in his pocket, he was approached by a teen demanding use of his phone. “Man, don’t ask me that. I can’t give you my phone...you know that’s not a good idea.”

The situation escalated. The demand was repeated. An offer to call for the teen was met with attack, slamming the young man’s head into the concrete and destroying the phone.

Was this God’s plan? Can’t imagine it was. God is not the author of evil. But the next day when the young man met with a different teen in a tutoring session, he learned who his attacker was, a friend of this friend. The following day, an apology was brought to the young man, along with an offer to pay for the phone. And here’s where it gets interesting.

The young man’s response was, “Forget it. Clean slate. Start over.” He explained later that he knew the teen would not have been able to pay for the phone regardless, but he was more interested in showing the grace and forgiveness he had received when he, himself, was a teen in trouble.

Most of his friends and acquaintances didn’t understand why he responded the way he did. He should have held the teen accountable, they said. He should have let him feel the consequences of his behavior. He should have “put him away” so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. But this young man knew he had been prepared by God’s judgment. He knew what it felt like to be trapped in trouble and get a second chance. He knew what forgiveness meant.

Would the young man have been able to predict the event when he was a teen himself? No. This was an unexpected gift..an unexpected gift of God’s grace that enabled a response that brought a little light into the darkness of a teen’s despair.

God, from you and to you and through you are all things. For those unexpected moments that remind us that we are yours, we give thanks. Amen.