Imagine you are homeless. You have no money and you’re forced to sit with a tin cup begging for pennies off strangers. No money, no food. You’re looking through the collection of small change and you notice something unusual: the glint of a diamond ring. How did that get there?  Was it an accident? Has someone just felt really sorry for you and chucked in a ring. Your first instinct is to look around. The street is empty. What do you do? Take it to a jewellers and get the money for it? Or hand it in to the police?

Honestly, what would most of us do in that situation.

True story – this happened to a man called Billy Ray Harris in Kansas City. He decided to hand the ring in to police. Good news – the ring’s owner, a lady called Sarah Darling, hadn’t meant to donate it and she was so glad to get it back. Bad news – the ring turned out not to be very expensive and she didn’t have much money to give Billy Ray.

Not the end of the story – Sarah told their story on the internet and set up a donations page. At the last count 6,000 people from all over the world were so inspired by Billy Ray that they donated over $145,000.

Is honesty always the best policy? Life will teach you what I tell you now: not always. Thousands of years ago the Psalmist complained to God that the wicked prosper and good suffer.

But Jesus said that God knows everything that we do in secret and eventually, maybe not in this life, there is a reward for every good action. The reward that Billy Ray got is nothing compared to the rewards that God has in store for those who love him and follow his commandments.

(Sources London Evening Standard 26 Feb 2013 – quoted in Fortean Times 302 June 2013)