It was a nice sunny day. I expected nothing spectacular as I stepped into the bank and put my card into the ATM for my planned $100 withdrawal.

All procedures went normally: insertion of card, entering of my security code, selection of options and amount. As I pressed "enter" the machine promptly went to work. Out came the cash and my transaction was completed.

As I counted the cash, which usually is dispensed in $20 bills, I counted first one $20 bill, then another, and then a $50 bill, followed by two more $20's.

I couldn't believe my good fortune! I thought I had hit the bank's local lottery jackpot! It was fairly obvious that the bank had made a mistake.

What should I do?

If I took the extra money, it would only be a $30 loss for the bank. What difference would that make to an institution that makes billions in profits? The bank would never miss it.

Or I could return it. Maybe there would be a reward in it for me. Banks can be nice. They could reward me with a pen or something like that, or even cash: $5 might be an acceptable goodwill gesture.

In the end, for me, there was really no question. The money had to be returned. It did not belong to me.

A grateful bank employee exchanged the $50 bill for a $20. She thanked me for my honesty. No reward. End of the story.

So where is the payoff? Did my choice really matter in the great scheme of things?

Recently, the Royal Ontario Museum had a special exhibit of Vincent Van Gogh paintings. You could get so close to his paintings you could almost touch them (but you dared not).

The painting "The Postman Joseph Roulin" intrigued me. Van Gogh uses short brush strokes in many of his paintings, giving an "impression" of his subject. Looking up close, you could seek the short, rough brush strokes of blues, browns, greens, reds, etc. From that perspective the brush strokes and color scheme made no sense whatsoever. But when I stepped back they became a face, a beard, a hat. Amazing! Every brush stroke counted and contributed to the beauty of the whole.

All of our choices, like those brush strokes, mount up. And when we add up our choices, whether positive or negative, good or evil, and multiply them with those of millions of other people, we realize they soon mount up in their consequences. Our choices create either a life of beauty or an ugly distortion of what could be.

Our choices, no matter what, do matter. They matter to God, they affect our relationship with God and they affect the impact we make on individuals and life around us.

Jesus said: "…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

I don't know what the reverberations of my action were or will be. I must admit, I did enjoy the whole experience. It was, in reality, a lot of fun. And maybe in some way my little action was a blessing: I relieved someone of the headache of trying to "reconcile" their accounts, trying to figure out where that $30 went.

When the bank employee thanked me for my honesty, I said to her, "It's part of my faith." She replied: "That's the way I feel as well and I would do the same thing."

You know what? I think I got my $30 worth! How lucky-better yet, blessed-can one get?