“He replied to the one speaking for the rest, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?’ Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first”.
(Matthew 20: 13 – 16)

When visiting Paris for the first time, I found one custom so different from here or other places I had visited that it made me genuinely uncomfortable: It was tipping. My guidebook told me not to tip the staff that cleaned my hotel room. They would take it as an insult that they were not doing their job well enough and needed further incentive. The same went for taxi drivers and to the infamous French waiters. An English-speaking waiter explained that the French do their job and leave you to eat, not hovering around the table working for a larger tip. That is why we often consider them to be aloof or inattentive, when in fact they are neither.

We cannot possibly reach the standards of perfection we sometimes think God places on us. We fail to realise how generous God is with us. God’s ways remain a mystery to us.

So we need merely to accept the generosity of God as God chooses to share it with us. We cannot work harder trying to impress God to get a bigger response from God who is already totally generous. We need instead to be accepting of what God chooses to give to us, grateful and humble.