Tuesday, April 3, 2018

I entered the bank at twenty minutes after ten this morning.  Walking through the lobby, past lines of people waiting to see the tellers, I opened the door to a small side room and went inside.  Three bank employees were in their regular place, sitting behind glass, waiting on customers.  There was a Middle Eastern man sitting in front of the last window, and an older Cameroonian man sitting in front of the first window, in the only other chair.  Two other younger Cameroonian men were standing off to the side.  The older gentleman immediately stood and gave me his chair.  I'm always impressed with the level of respect that is given to an older person in this culture.  It didn't take many seconds for my attention to be drawn to the Middle Eastern man.  I tried not to state.  In fact, we all tried to avert our eyes and at least appear circumspect.  After all, we were in this little side room because we were either making large deposits or large withdrawals.  Large sums of money should not make us stare.  But we couldn't help it.  It took two employees to wait on the gentleman in question.  He kept producing large bundles of money and piling them up in front of one window and then the other.  The ladies kept reaching for one bundle after the other, removing rubber bands, and putting them in their counting machines.  As soon as one mound of money was counted, re-banded, and put off to the side, the gentleman removed more bundles and set them on the counter. The entire thirty minutes I was in the small side room, it never stopped.  Finally I realized that he had a large back pack on the floor next to his chair.  He kept removing endless stacks of money and handing them off to the ladies to be counted.  When the money I was withdrawing (all the support we have received for this month) was handed to me by the first employee, it looked so paltry in comparison to the unending supply of money that was flowing out of the back pack.  As I walked out of the small side room, back across the lobby, and out of the bank, all I could think of was Heaven.  That excessively large amount of money I had spent the last half hour staring at was absolutely nothing in comparison to what awaits us in Glory someday.  As the song we used to sing says "This world is not my home.  I'm just a passing through.  My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue."  You can have everything this world has to offer, just give me Jesus. 

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