The Ungrateful Jogger – by Eliezer Gonzalez

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Jun 8, 2015 3650

There is a story about a vendor who sold bagels for a dollar each at a street corner food stand. A jogger ran past and threw a couple of quarters into the bucket but didn’t take a bagel. He did the same thing every day for months. One day, as the jogger was passing by, the vendor stopped him. The jogger asked, “You probably want to know why I always put money in but never take a bagel, don’t you?” “No,” said the vendor. “I just wanted to tell you that the bagels have gone up to two dollars.”

Too often, as believers, we treat God with that same kind of attitude. Not only are we ungrateful for what He’s given us—but we want more. Somehow we feel that God owes us good health, a comfortable life, material blessings. Of course, God doesn’t owe us anything, yet He gives us everything.

This reminds me of the moral of the parable that Jesus told about the wedding banquet. The story starts with a great wedding banquet that the king has prepared for his son. And the people who have been invited have not arrived. So the king sends his servants to those who had been invited to come to the banquet, and still they refuse, making all kinds of excuses. So then the king says to his servants,

Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. (Matt 22:8)

Then the king sends his servants out into the streets to gather whomever they find, the bad and the good, so that the wedding hall was filled with guests.

It is only the grateful who enjoy the kingdom party that God throws for his people. It is only those who approach God from a sense of their own unworthiness, in awe at the generosity of God, who will enjoy his blessings. Although we deserve nothing, he has given us everything. Like Paul, we should be able to say from our hearts, “I am the least… and not fit to be called an apostle…” (1 Cor 15:9).

Let us never be like the vendor who takes the jogger’s money for nothing, and then expects more. This is a trap for believers. Let’s simply keep an open hand to receive what God will give us. Be always be grateful. Always give thanks.

– Eliezer Gonzalez
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