Christmas time puts many extra items on everyone’s to-do list. Our brains quickly clutter with gift ideas, entertaining opportunities and necessary errands. As we go about the usual responsibilities of our week, seasonal tasks take priority while everyday duties slide.

A few days ago, after yanking a stack of cash from the local ATM, I pulled into the bank lot to organize my wallet and prioritize my errands. As I sat with a wad of bills in one hand, my list and a pen in the other, I saw in my periphery vision a man approaching my car. “What now,” I thought.

He rapped on the frosty window, and I looked up from my organizational work through irritated eyes. He smiled, then pressed something flat against the window for me to see: my ATM card.

Racing to start my errands, I’d forgotten to pull the card from the machine. This kind man had done it for me and amazingly had noticed my car in the nearby lot.

If he’d chosen to keep the card, he could have headed for the nearest Walmart and gone on a spending spree; I’d recently deposited $10,000 into the account in preparation for paying Birgitta’s college tuition bill.

Feeling ashamed of myself, I rolled down the window and accepted the card. He smiled and said, “I thought you might need this.”

Despite having a fist-full of twenty dollar bills, I was too stunned to offer one of them as a reward for his honesty, and I feel badly about it. Parting with $20 (in the face of losing $10,000) would have been a bare-minimum thank you gift.

Performing “random acts of kindness” has been a popular theme among celebrities and on talk shows in recent years, people doing nice things for others without expecting anything back. The man who returned my card was being kind without expecting anything from me, but had I given him a reward, I’d have had the joy of participating in a random act of kindness… just as he had.

Jesus was the perfect model of kindness. He healed, blessed, taught, served and performed a variety of miracles for the benefit of others. One lavish act of kindness was feeding 5000 hungry people by miraculously dividing five rolls and two fish to generate food for all.

As the disciples walked among the masses distributing the meal, did Jesus’ hands get tired from breaking off bits of bread and fish? There were 5000 men there that day, with women and children probably doubling that. Since all were satisfied after the meal, he probably tore many thousands of pieces with fingers that surely got sore. This deed was truly kind.

And did he receive anything in return? Although the story is told in all four Gospels, none mentions Jesus even eating his own meal that day.

During this season of Christmas gift-giving, each time I pull out my ATM card, I’ll think of the stranger and his random act of kindness. But I’ll also think of Jesus, who went out of his way repeatedly to be kind to others and is still doing it today.

“God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly…” (2 Corinthians 9:7,8)