I'm currently reading To Own A Dragon by Donald Miller, and although I have been highlighting and dog-earring pages all along, I had to stop and share this one passage from the book. In case you are unfamiliar with DM or this book, it's a series of understandings Don comes to learn regarding growing up without a father; what it means to be a man; how your father shapes your view of God, etc.. This piece I'm about to summarize is by no means revolutionary or even that great of a story, but it's the simplicity of it that is so striking.
Don was showing his new phone off to his friend John and explaining how he had come about getting it for free. The store he went to had a new computer system and it didn't have their records to verify if his phone was still under warranty. He told a seemingly little white lie, saying that the phone was only around a year old, and they replaced it for a newer model free of charge.
Don and John continue discussing other things and then John asks if Don has ever seen The Family Man with Nicolas Cage. John proceeds to describe this scene in the movie where Cage is in line at a convenience store and the girl in front of him is purchasing something for 99 cents. She hands the clerk a dollar and the clerk counts out and hands to her 9 dollars in change. The girl doesn't correct him and as she's walking out the door, the clerk stops her and asks if there is anything else - giving her another chance to be honest, but she shakes her head no and walks out. Then the clerk looks at Cage and says "Did you see that? She was willing to sell her character for nine dollars. Nine dollars!!!"
Nothing else is exchanged on the subject for a few minutes and they go about discussing other topics. Then Don finally asks if John thinks that he has done the same thing as the girl in the film. In truthful, non-judgmental way, John agrees stating that "the bible talks about having a calloused heart. That's when sin, after a period of time, has so deceived us we no longer care whether our thoughts and actions are right or wrong. And we have to guard against that." Again, the subject is changed and nothing more is exchanged between the two of them. Don reflects on this a bit further and as he flips through the channels on tv. He stops to watch a post-Watergate interview and is annoyed at how innocent Nixon looks. Don wonders why he couldn't just admit he had done something wrong, but realizes cheating to get ahead in politics is hardly considered a crime today. The next day Don went back to the Sprint store, and although it cost him more than nine dollars, he got his character back.
So, you may have just read this and are thinking "big deal." In fact, you may be thinking Don is an idiot for passing up a free phone. Accepting the phone free of charge probably did not hurt Sprint in any way, nor is he condemning himself to hell for telling a white lie. But in this moment, and with the help of a friend who cares about Don's spiritual maturity, he chose not to be like the rest of the world. He chose not to fall into a pattern of behavior that did not honor God's character. He chose to recognize that even the littlest of decisions can separate us from being the person we are striving for, and he refused to compromise himself. I don't know. I know it's something that seems so little, but it seemed huge when I read it. I've probably done a horrible job of conveying the magnitude of the story, and I think my interpretation was highly influenced by the position of my heart.
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