Last week during one of my bus commutes, I witnessed an especially intriguing interaction that led me to considering who God is in a new way.
A group of teenagers got on the bus, and after the first couple of them walked on and attempted to pay, the bus driver called out for them to come back because the payment hadn’t worked. Instead of going back to pay or even responding to the bus driver at all, they just stood their silently staring back at him or ignoring him entirely and looking at their phones.
One of the final friends to get on the bus had attempted to speak up for her friends and said, “She paid already!” And the bus driver told her that the card had not been accepted.
Instead of battling things out with the teenagers or making the rest of us wait for them to own up to their mistakes, he called out to them and said, “Would you make sure you pay next time?!”
They rode the bus for a few more stops, and right as they were getting off the bus, a five dollar bill fell to the ground and blew further into the bus as the air blew in and the four of them got off the bus. All of us sitting nearby noticed the money, and I chuckled and said, “Well, it looks like they did end up paying after all!”
“Hey, yeah that’s right!” the passenger across from me exclaimed as he stooped down to pick up the money. He carried it up to the front of the bus and slipped it through the plexiglass and into the cash collector.
“I think those kids dropped this on their way out so it only seemed right to bring it here.”
I didn’t have to wait for long to see how the bus driver would react to this change of events, because as soon as the other passenger finished explaining what had happened, the bus driver let out the biggest, loudest and longest laugh I’d heard in ages!!
The thing that struck me most about this man’s response was that it wasn’t a mean laugh or one that made it seem like he was happy those kids had lost their money. It wasn’t a vengeful or spiteful laugh. He genuinely seemed to be amused and surprised by the whole turn of events!
When I heard his laughter and the kindness that filled it, I felt a little convicted because one of my first thoughts had been that it served those kids right. Good thing they dropped that five dollar bill because they owed it to the TTC. How dare they have been so disrespectful to begin with?!
Then, once again, that familiar nudging from the Holy Spirit began to fill my mind and lead me to wonder about how God responds to us when we disrespect, disobey and disregard doing or saying the things we know we’re supposed to do.
I began to wonder, instead, about how cool it would be if somehow that five dollar bill actually just appeared there on the ground as they left. Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of this being a story of kids getting what they deserved by losing their own money, it was a story of God miraculously providing a way out for them that brought such surprise and delight to others?
The critical thinking part of my brain wants to shut that down immediately, but the rest of me can’t help but wonder if maybe our God is big enough and different enough and capable enough to do something just like that.