Actions Speak Loudest

 

DAILY VITAMIN

- Actions Speak Loudest

“Don’t hide your light! Let it shine for all; let your good deeds glow for all to see, so that they will praise your heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:16 TLB)

It was 4:30 p.m., sometime in late January 2015. The students were crowded en masse for Laboratory Practice registrations. Everybody was there; the sleek guys and girls, and the geeks as well. And also there was myself, and my very good friend Earnest. We were both members of the Christian Community on campus; but Earnest was the more vocal kind.

Well, on this day, the hall was replete with students and the process slow, but eventually it got to our turn. The Registration Officer (R.O) requested for the required fee and documentation and thus signed me up; however when it was Earnest’s time to get registered, he failed to ask for the fee. Anyway, when we were both done with the process and on our way back home, Earnest softly indicated that we stop for a moment.

As we stood there under the canopy, just outside the reach of the torrential downpour, he began to tell me about how much in need of money he was; but I couldn’t quite get it. You see, Earnest hardly talks about this kind of things, and so I enquired about what the real issue was behind this façade of lack and want. Then he told me about how he still had his fifteen hundred on him, because the R.O literally didn’t request for it; and asked me what he should do.

“This could be God’s blessing in disguise?” he mused, but I assured him that if it were God he wouldn’t feel guilty about it. So after some minutes of critical brooding and deliberations, we decided together to return back to the administrative office to find out if he really had given him a waiver, or simply had just forgotten to collect it.

As we got back to the lobby, at about 5:20 p.m.to be precise, the crowd had depleted, but since this time around we were there to issue a complaint and not necessarily for any form of registration, we skipped the line and went straight into the office with four of our course mates already inside. These were those sleek fellows who had little or no time to listen to what Earnest had to say about his Lord and Saviour; but on that day it was like God intentionally placed them in that room to receive the most realistic sermon they would ever hear.

So, as I was saying, we got in, and Earnest told the R.O that he hadn’t paid the required fee because unlike with everyone else he didn’t request for it. The R.O was left shell-shocked after hearing that. He crosschecked his list to confirm if he had indeed been registered, and afterwards took account of the total sum he had received as compared with the number that had been registered, only to realize he was a thousand five hundred short. He took a deep breath, slouched a bit, and then he gazed intensely at Earnest. I don’t know what got him the most; whether it was the fact that he couldn’t believe he forgot something so sensitive and important, or that a young man was going against the norm to report what could have been the easiest fraud. But he did sit there still as confused as can be, and after a while stood up with a serious look now in his eyes and asked, “Are you a Christian, young man?”

Earnest responded in the affirmative, and then he retorted about how they were a few people left who would do what he had just done. He collected the money, and looking towards those peers of ours who had been forced to become our very live audience, said, “This is what it means to be a person of integrity and a Christian”. And then he dismissed us and continued with the registration, but rather more sternly now.

There was this feeling of fulfilment that overwhelmed us; and while it was somewhat difficult to explain at that moment, all I know is that it changed everything forever. From that day till the end of our final year, that group listened when Earnest spoke. He didn’t have to say much to earn that, what they had seen happen in that room was enough.

It’s just like Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” And they saw his fruits and found God in it. Till today, Earnest and I are still astounded every time we reflect on what happened that day; but more than anything else we learned that while words are beautiful and a great personality is gold, it is our actions that speak the loudest.

“…once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord, and your behaviour should show it.” (Ephesians 5:8 TLB)