Hello,
I felt like honking….but I didn’t….because I don’t. Out here you never know who has a
shotgun in the car.
The occasion for my urge to honk came as I pulled up at the
drive-through ATM, I was on my way
to meet someone and needed some cash, so I was in a bit of a hurry. There was only one car in front of me,
so I figured that I would accomplish my mission of getting some money and be on
time for my appointment.
But I was wrong. The person
in the car in front of me must have been saving her yearly banking needs for
the time that she was in front of me.
I don’t know how long she took to do her business, but it seemed like an
hour (not really, but when you need to be somewhere, time moves speedily). Three…maybe four times she stuck her
card in the machine, pulled it out and sorted through stuff in her car.
As I sat behind her, watching the minutes tick by, I thought to my self,
“Surely she knows that I am waiting behind her.” How inconsiderate of her to monopolize this machine. If she had so much business to do, she
should have gone to the inside teller….but no….she obviously was simply too
lazy to park her car and do what would have been more considerate to
others. With every passing
insertion of her card my patience waned.
Finally, she pulled her
card out of the machine for the last time….but did she move forward? No! She rolled her window up, and in the comfort of her air
conditioning she probably was sorting out her cash into old and new bills …. and finally …..finally….she
took her car out of park, applied her brake and crept out of the space that she
had been hogging! It is amazing, I
thought to myself, how thoughtless some people are!
So, I pulled up to the ATM, pulled out my card, and quickly inserted
it. By this time there was a car
or two behind me, and I would show them that I would not be like the person who
had been in front of me. The
screen invited me to take my card back and enter my pin number….and I did. I, unlike the self-absorbed person that
I waited for, I would be out of here in a second.
A screen popped up that I had never seen before, asking me to select one
of my accounts….wait…I only thought I had one account. So, I stared at that screen wondering
which button I should press. So, I
pressed one. The wrong one,
because after the computer thought for a bit, it printed the words on the
screen, “Your request is larger than your account balance. Transaction completed.”
So, I had to reach into my back pocket and pull out my card that I had
quickly put away, insert it in the ATM, punch in my pin number, and try a
different account. This time my
request was within reach of my balance, but I must have hit the wrong button,
because instead of giving me money, the machine read, “Thank you. Transaction complete.”
Back to my back pocket to retrieve my card, which I re-inserted in the
machine, punched in my pin number, accessed the right account, typed in the
amount that I wanted….and….this time it said, “Processing transaction”. In a moment my cash appeared in front
of me. I pulled in into my car….and
quickly moved out of the spot that I had monopolized…..a line of four or five
cars now behind me.
Evidence of the truth of what I say every Sunday morning, “I confess
that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.”
“Forgive me, Lord.” And God
does!
Have a great week.
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
No comments:
Post a Comment