R.K. learned that we may rob others of their abilities by our attitudes toward them. He changed his attitude and thereby changed a fact.
“I am not a money lender nor am I in the investment business as such, but a friend and business acquaintance came to me for a substantial loan in order to expand his plant.
Because of personal friendship, I granted the loan with reasonable interest rates and gave my friend the right of renewal at the end of one year.
When the first year term expired, he was behind in his interest payments and requested a thirty-day extension on the note.
I granted this request, but at the end of thirty days, he was still unable to meet the note and asked for an additional extension.
“As I previously stated, I am not in the business of lending money.
Within twenty days, I needed full payment of the loan to meet debts of my own. But I consented again to extend the note although my own credit was now in serious jeopardy.
The natural thing to do was to apply legal pressure to collect, and a few years ago, I would have done just that. Instead, I remembered your warning ‘not to rob others of their ability,’ and I realized that I had been robbing my friend of his ability to pay what he owed.
“For three nights, I constructed a scene in my imagination in which I heard my friend tell me that unexpected orders had flooded his desk so rapidly, he was now able to pay the loan in full.
On the fourth day, I received a telephone call from him.
He told me that by what he called ‘a miracle,’ he had received so many orders, and big ones, too, that he was now able to pay back my loan including all interest due and, in fact, had just mailed a check to me for the entire amount.”
—R.K.
Story from the book The Law And The Promise
