Last night as I was leaving the grocery store I met a homeless man named David. Honestly I had intended to hand him a few bucks, say "God bless you" & walk away. Not that giving isn't good or sufficient, but God had a bit more planned this time. In our brief conversation David said 3 things that really struck me.
1. He was moved to tears telling me of the sleeping bag someone had recently given him.
(Wow! To think if we were all that generous! A fairly small gesture on one man's part was a gift worth crying over for David. The thing that amazes me is that meeting a need so often taxes our comfort zone more than our wallets. If we could approach the world more often that way, going beyond ourselves to meet a real need, imagine how God could bless people through us.)
2. In nearly the same breath David asked why Jesus didn't love him anymore. I told him that Jesus still loved him; He brought someone into David's life to give him that sleeping bag. And He put me in David's path. That's not to toot my horn, but to say that over the past couple of years God has been teaching me to keep an eye out for need. There's a reason David caught my attention last night and it has nothing to do with me.
3. David said he would be praying for me. I find that astonishing, and told him I would be praying for him. I ask you to join me also. Likely I will never know what happens to David, but I know that his life is in God's hands. I pray that God would intervene & improve his circumstances and that more people would cross his path who are willing to give him sleeping bag kind of generosity and some time to let him share his pain. And for us I pray that we would see better with God's eyes. It's so easy to look past someone or to be in too much of a hurry, but I really believe sometimes as little as 5 minutes can make a world of difference in someone's life.
1. He was moved to tears telling me of the sleeping bag someone had recently given him.
(Wow! To think if we were all that generous! A fairly small gesture on one man's part was a gift worth crying over for David. The thing that amazes me is that meeting a need so often taxes our comfort zone more than our wallets. If we could approach the world more often that way, going beyond ourselves to meet a real need, imagine how God could bless people through us.)
2. In nearly the same breath David asked why Jesus didn't love him anymore. I told him that Jesus still loved him; He brought someone into David's life to give him that sleeping bag. And He put me in David's path. That's not to toot my horn, but to say that over the past couple of years God has been teaching me to keep an eye out for need. There's a reason David caught my attention last night and it has nothing to do with me.
3. David said he would be praying for me. I find that astonishing, and told him I would be praying for him. I ask you to join me also. Likely I will never know what happens to David, but I know that his life is in God's hands. I pray that God would intervene & improve his circumstances and that more people would cross his path who are willing to give him sleeping bag kind of generosity and some time to let him share his pain. And for us I pray that we would see better with God's eyes. It's so easy to look past someone or to be in too much of a hurry, but I really believe sometimes as little as 5 minutes can make a world of difference in someone's life.
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