In the computer industry, like most other places, I meet all sorts of interesting people from very different backgrounds. One of the people I’ve worked with came from a startup, a dot com, that went belly up about 10 years ago. It didn’t go out of business because of the economy, they went out of business because the founder died.

Like many other small companies, the employees were very close to each other, maybe because they feasted or famined together so many times. In any case each of them were left something in the will of the man who’d run the company and he broke up his assets to share among them. The senior people got large amounts of cash and amusing perks. One fellow got 5 or 6 paintings, another got the Bentley or Rolls or whatever car their former boss had. Others got equally stunning presents, because their boss had no family and rewarded them all handsomely.

However one employee was a little disgruntled. Instead of money or a car or a painting, he had a cardboard box delivered to his house. Inside the box were old reels of film. I mean OLD reels of film. Looking at the sizeable stockpile, he saw Amos and Andy episodes, old movies, and the like. He took them to an antique collector who told them they were in exceptional shape and made him a good offer for them of a few hundred dollars. Almost he sold, but instead thinking it must be part of some larger, better inheritance he decided to keep them and see what happened.

For a couple years, nothing did. He rubbed elbows with his more well to do former friends here and there in the industry, looking at them in envy while they drove their fancy cars and told tales of selling a painting or other item from their former boss for a boatload of money. The man with the films kept silent, more than a little ashamed that he had been singled out for punishment. What did he ever do wrong to deserve this treatment?

This is a true story by the way, but it certainly also has a Godly message for us. When we become Christians, we serve our master. We may live very faithful, quiet lives. The word around us rewards the tricksters, the ungodly, the sinful with wealth and fame. We expect some great treatment by our being true to God yet we are often stomped on. It is discouraging and we may not see the value we have, after all there are so few of us, what can one good person do here or there? It makes us want to sell out, so we don’t “miss out” on worldly things. What did we ever do to deserve such treatment?

I don’t see the fellow any more at work. I don’t know that he works anywhere at all. There was a reunion of sorts with the old company every year around the fourth of July and the man didn’t go the first couple years. But after several old friends asked why he finally went. It was exactly as he thought, they toasted their founder and bragged up their good fortune. However, something amazing happened. One of the best well off praised the man with the films, saying “You must have great character to let all that wealth not go to your head and remain so normal!” Stunned, he asked why that had been said. All he had gotten was a big batch of old movies. Now it was everyone else’s turn to be stunned. You see, he didn’t get copies of the shows. He got the actual film from the shows – and full rights. The next day when he inquired at the right places, he was told his movies and episodes weren’t worth hundreds – they were worth millions!

Someday we will all stand before God. Some he will point to the right and say Heaven is yours. We don’t deserve it, but it is the gift he has for his servants. We may obey God because we were raised and taught to. Great! We may obey God because we don’t want to burn eternally in fire. Fine! We may even remain faithful because it is simply the right thing to do. Fantastic! But let’s not discount the value of the gift he has given us. His death has given us an inheritance to eternal paradise. Why would we show envy for those who have anything less? Sometimes we should obey simply to keep what we already have!

Randy