"Do you get what you don't deserve?"

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I recently ate out with some of our family. It was a Chinese buffet and you pay as you go in, before you eat, rather than after.

So I was at the counter, preparing to pay, when the cashier and our daughter almost at the same time said, “Do you have one of the dinner cards?” These cards are sort of like frequent eater cards, i.e., they stamp your card once for each meal purchased and the tenth one is free.

“Yes, I do,” I said, having no idea what was on the card, just that it was somewhere in the farthest reaches of my wallet. So I found it, pulled it out, and handed it to the attendant.

“Oh,” she says, “you get a free meal tonight.”

There I was carrying the prospect of a free meal in my back pocket, and I didn’t even know it. I got something I didn’t deserve—a free meal.

When was the last time you got something you didn’t deserve? Received a gift, a prize, a compliment, a smile that you hadn’t earned?

Thank God for these gifts, great and small, as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living today.

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