Last week my son Noah and I were dumping our gear into a locker at our local gym when something shiny caught my eye on the top shelf. As I looked chore closely, I realized it was a dime. So I left it there for someone else to find. It was just a dime, after all. Webster says a dime is “a petty sum of money.” I agree. Hardly worth picking up. Leave it.
Imagine my surprise this morning when I yanked my stuff out of the very same locker and heard that very same dime tinkle onto the tile floor. No one had touched the thing.
Huh.
There it sat, glistening in the growing puddle my freshly showered feet were growing on the floor. And I almost left it. Again. Until I felt God saying, pick it up. As I obeyed, God took me to school.
It occurred to me that this dime, small and petty as I’d deemed it, was still a gift. The kind of gift most people overlook. Or let lie. I wondered how many “dimes” God puts in lockers and along sidewalks and in the parking lots of my life. You know, little blessings planted here and there and everywhere for me to discover.
I remember figuring out this “get rich scheme” as a younger boy, scouring parking lots and vending machines for spare change. Finding a dime back then felt like Indy unearthing buried treasure.
But now that I’ve grown up and know better, chump change doesn’t look quite so shiny or golden. So I routinely disregard these “dime a dozen” gifts and walk away, turned off by the effort it would take to scoop them up. Even if I do scoop them up, they’re so small that I rarely think to say thank you for them.
I forget that dollars are made of dimes. That big things are built using smaller things that add up and become more than the sum of their little parts.
I forget that God’s gifts come in all sizes, that every one of us are living on God’s dime, that we need every last drop of what he’s giving to thrive in this world. I suspect I’m missing out on more than I’d care to admit.
I forget that important things can literally turn on a dime. One tiny gift, a single cup of water given or received in Jesus’ name can sometimes change a life, reverse a trend, change a trajectory.
I forget that I nickel and dime God daily with selfish prayers instead of embracing gratitude and a generous spirit.
Me? I’ve decided to grow a richer life, one dime at a time.
What about you? A penny for your thoughts…
😉