Lost and Found

Did you ever lost something ?

Well, every now and then, we will lose a bit of our earthly possession, such as:
- wallet
- water bottle (a good friend of mine lost 4 in a year!!)
- handphone
- laptop? (amazing is it? Singapore cabs found hundreds of lost laptops in a year)
- etc

When you lost something, what do you normally do?
- Trying to search for the thing first
- if it is precious, report to the police
- start to blame the person who finds it for being a thief

Now.. what if we turn the situation the other way round. Did you ever find something?
- A small coin of little worth
- A notes of 50 dollars
- A thumbdrive in the public computer
- A handphone in the public bus or toilet
- A wallet full of money and credit cards

What do you reckon you would do?
1. Keep the thing, handphone, or whatever. Afterall, the people who found your lost stuff never return them to you.
2. Try to find the owner, if cannot find, then it belongs to you.
3. Try to find the owner, if cannot find, return to police

Do you argue, that the money or whatever, is God's answer to your prayer?


Let's look at what happen to me a few days ago, when I lost my handphone pouch. Luckily the handphone was not inside. I was playing a minigame using my hp, and the pouch was on my lap. When I was changing train at Jurong East, I realized the pouch is gone. I went back to search, but cannot see the pouch.

An old man standing in the platform asked me kindly, 'what did you lost?' I say, its nothing, just a pouch. He said, there was a XXXX guy who picked it up when I dropped it, but he walked away already. I was like, hmm.. if I found someone dropped something, that moment I will pick it up and return it to the person. Why the guy didn't return to me? maybe he thought that it contained some money inside. Well.... go figures

The old man seems to be in his 50s. Looks simple, not rich. He shared that few years ago at 2003, he found a packet in the train. It contained more than 100K SGD in cash. He managed to trace the rightful owner and returned the money. The owner happened to be the boss of a company, who is about to pay salary for his staffs. He was extremely grateful and offered to give 4K SGD to the old man for his honesty. The old man rejected, but finally accepted 2K. They became friends ever since, and the boss promised that anytime the old man need help or job, he will always be there to help.

I was amazed by such a story. Indeed, sometimes, only the poor man recognized the suffering of the poor, and they will always help. Even though they are not rich, but they are contented. It is the rich who is always thirst for more riches, because of that, the rich sometimes failed to reject the temptation for his own sake.

I reflect upon myself. If I found the 100K SGD on the floor. Will I return it? As a Bible College student, the standard, theoretical, idealistic reply is, I will return. But in realistic, practically, can I just keep it for myself? nobody knows right? the person lost the money because he/she is not careful, and he/she need to pay something to learn the lesson right? and there goes the justification lists...

This is my prayer:
God, please do not test me on that. It is too big a temptation for me now. Test me on smaller things first, so that I can prove myself faithful. I want to live a life full of integrity. I dont want to be hypocrites who tells and preach on one thing and do otherwise.