Windshield Wipers
One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick. Suddenly, my son Matthew spoke up from his relaxed position in the front seat. “Mom, I’m thinking of something.” This announcement usually meant he had been pondering some fact for a while and was now ready to expound all that his seven-year-old mind had discovered.
“What
are you thinking?” I asked.
“The rain,” he began, “is like sin and the windshield wipers are like God, wiping our sins away.”
After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond. “That’s really good, Matthew.” Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little boy take this revelation?
So I asked…Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What
does that tell you?”
Matthew didn’t hesitate one moment with his answer. “We keep
on sinning , and God keeps on forgiving us.”
I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.
Several years ago a group of computer salesmen from Milwaukee went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for dinner. But with one thing or another, the meeting ran overtime, and the men had to race to the station, tickets in hand. As they barged through the terminal one man inadvertently kicked over a table supporting a basket of apples. Without stopping, all the men reached the train and boarded it with relief. All but one. He paused, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compunction for the boy whose apple stand had been overturned. He waved goodbye to his companions and returned to the terminal. He was glad he did. The ten-year-old boy was blind.
The salesman gathered up the apples and noticed that several of them were bruised. He reached into his wallet and said to the boy, “Here is ten dollars to pay for the damage we did. I hope it won’t spoil your day. As he started to walk away, the bewildered boy called after him, “Are you Jesus?”
He stopped in his tracks. And he wondered.
-Brennan Manning