Seven Harvests for Two Strangers
Two poor men forgot a little barley in Rav Pinchas's care; he planted it every year and returned it to them as whole storehouses of grain.
It is told that Rebbi Pinchas ben Yair once lived in a town in the south, where people came from elsewhere to earn a living. Two poor men who had come there for work left two se'ah (a dry measure) of barley with him for safekeeping. Then they moved on and forgot all about it.
Rav Pinchas did not leave their barley to sit in a sack and spoil. When the season came, he sowed it, harvested the crop, and stored it for its owners. The next year he planted it again, and the year after that. For seven years each harvest was sown once more, and the small deposit grew and grew.
At the end of seven years the two men came back to the town to ask for their barley. Rav Pinchas recognized them at once. He did not hand them a sack. Come, he told them, take your storehouses. Bring camels and donkeys to carry away your grain.
The sages tell this story to explain why Moshe Rabbeinu called Hashem "the faithful G-d." If a man of flesh and blood can guard a deposit so faithfully that it returns many times over, how much more faithfully does Hashem guard everything we entrust to Him.
Source: Midrash Devarim Rabbah 3:3; Talmud Yerushalmi, Demai 1:3
Rav Pinchas cared for two strangers' forgotten barley as if its owners were watching. Think of something in your keeping that belongs to someone else: a borrowed sefer, a tool, a neighbor's dish. This week, return one item that has stayed with you too long, and give it back in better shape than you received it, cleaned, refilled or with a short note of thanks. Each time you do, you reflect in a small way the faithfulness with which Hashem guards what we place in His hands.