A young man was getting ready to graduate from university. For a long time he had been admiring a beautiful sports car in a local dealer’s showroom and knowing his father could well afford it, he told his dad that he would really like it as a reward for graduating. As his day of graduation approached, the young man began looking for signs that his father had bought him the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his study and told him how proud he was to have such a fine son and he handed the boy a beautifully wrapped gift box. Curious, but disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a beautiful leather bound Bible with the young man’s name embossed in gold on the front cover. The man threw the Bible onto the desk and shouted at his father, “With all the money you have, you give me a Bible as a gift,” he then stormed out of the house in a rage.

Many years passed and the young man became a very successful business man, with a beautiful wife, a large house and a loving family, but never managed to heal the rift he had with his father. One day he realised that his father was getting quite old and thought that it was time to go and see him, as he not spoken to him since his graduation and he felt it was time his children met their grandfather. Before he had time to make arrangements for the visit, he received a telegram telling him that his father had died and had willed all his possessions to his son, so he needed to come home and take care of things. When he arrived at his father’s house, sadness and regret filled his heart. He entered his father’s study to sort through his papers and saw the Bible, still on the desk after all these years. With tears in his eyes he opened the Bible and a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer’s name and on the tag was the date of his graduation and the words, “Paid in full.”