A Test of Integrity. Can God trust you with the Wealth?
I want to share a short story that happened to me recently. I was at a Restaurant Buffet where you pay by the weight. Each type of food (meat, grains, vegetables) has a different price. After I paid and sat down to eat, I noticed one of the meat dishes wasn’t on my receipt. The cashier forgot to ring it up.
At this point I’m already eating. And an internal discussion begins:
Left Shoulder: It’s only $2 dollars, they’re not going to miss it
Right Shoulder: It’s not about the amount, it’s a matter of Integrity
Left Shoulder: The food is by weight, they’re not going to remember what they weight was, and I already started eating
Right Shoulder: It’s worth asking anyway
Left Shoulder: They’re probably going to say don’t worry about it
Right Shoulder: But what if the cashier gets in trouble at the end of the day (Most Restaurants know the total weight of food and do calculations at end of day, to determine if employees are giving away too much or too little, stealing, wasting, etc.)
Left Shoulder: they probably didn’t catch it and will find you odd for even bringing up such as small amount
Right Shoulder: the Bible says do not steal. Even if they don’t know, at this point I already know.
After I finished eating, I went up to the cashier and told her about the receipt. She responded saying that they noticed, but didn’t want to bother me, as I had already started eating. She said thank you for bringing it up, and charged me the difference. I paid.
This never happened to me before. So was this just a simple mistake, or a Test of Integrity from God?
Exodus 20:15 — “You shall not steal.
Luke 16:10–13
God Sees Behind Appearances
Jesus went on to make these comments:
If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things;
If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
He’ll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
You can’t serve both God and the Bank.
James 1:2–4 — Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:3 — For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Proverbs 17:3 — As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan, so our lives are refined by God.
Would you have done the same or done things differently, if this happened to you?
Would your actions change depending on the situation?
• Bank Teller gives you too much money
• Bank accidentally deposits someone else’s money into your bank account
• Store Cashier or Restaurant Server gives you too much change back
I found an old news article mentioning a similar story. Apparently, they decided to perform a Test of Integrity, to see how each person would act. Someone is always watching. We need to make sure we always act with Integrity — and ask ourselves “what would Jesus do”. We are the representatives of our Faith, and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2754830&page=1
Ethical Dilemma: Too Much Change
If a cashier gives you too much change back, would you return it?
By ABC News
January 26, 2009
You’re at a department store, a grocery store, a restaurant — and the cashier gives you too much change. Should you keep it?
Is it the store’s misfortune and your lucky day?
Or should you do the right thing and return the money?
To find out what people do when they think no one’s watching, “Primetime” set up hidden cameras in a New Jersey diner and gave the cashier a stack of extra $10 and $20 bills, to dispense along with the customers’ change, as if by accident.
Over the course of two days, we watched as 46 different people were given too much change. What would they do?
Some, like Joseph Sergi — who received an extra $10 — noticed right away and returned the extra change right there at the cash register. Sergi said it was not just the right thing to do, he was also driven by his compassion for the cashier.
“I know from past experience…the cashier always has to pay if she makes a mistake,” he said.
For Jerry Frain, who received an extra $20, the motivation to return the money was more basic: “I’m an Irish-Catholic and my mother always told me if I stole, I’d go to hell…You never forget those things.”
Many other good samaritans spoke of the idea that “what goes around comes around,” or “what you put out in the universe comes back to you.”
They seemed to be evoking a popular concept from the 2002 movie “Pay it Forward.” In the film, a social studies teacher gives his class an assignment to think of a way to change the world. One student comes up with the idea of “paying it forward” — performing three acts of kindness with the condition that the recipients must, in turn, do the same for three more people.
“The notion that good deeds reciprocate one another is essential to human society,” said Carrie Keating, a psychology professor at Colgate University. “It’s what we count on to enable social interactions and social exchanges to work.”
But while 18 of the 46 subjects returned the money right at the cash register, 26 people walked out of the restaurant with the money.
Prophetic Money