It was an
unusually cold day for the month of May. Spring had arrived and everything was
alive with color. But a cold front from the North had brought winter's chill
back to Indiana. I sat with two friends in the picture window of a quaint
restaurant just off the corner of the town square. The food and the company
were both especially good that day. As we talked, my attention was drawn
outside, across the street.
There,
walking into town was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods
on his back. He was carrying a well-worn sign that read, "I will work for
food." My heart sank. I brought him to the attention of my friends and
noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved
in a mixture of sadness and disbelief. We continued with our meal, but his
image lingered in my mind. We finished our meal and went our separate ways.
I had
errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town
square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful,
knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through town
and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store and got back in my
car. Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: "Don't go back
to the office until you've at least driven once more around the square."
And so, with some hesitancy, I headed back into town.
As I turned
the square's third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of a
storefront church, going through his sack. I stopped and looked, feeling both
compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on
the corner seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in,
got out and approached the town's newest visitor.
"Looking
for the pastor?" I asked.
"Not
really," he replied, "just resting."
"Have
you eaten today?"
"Oh, I
ate something early this morning."
"Would
you like to have lunch with me?”
"Do you
have some work I could do for you?"
"No
work," I replied." I commute here to work from the city, but I would
like to take you to lunch."
"Sure,"
he replied with a smile.
As he began
to gather his things, I asked some surface questions.
"Where you
headed?"
"St.
Louis."
"Where
you from?"
"Oh,
all over; mostly Florida."
"How
long you been walking?"
"Fourteen
years," came the reply.
I knew I had
met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the same restaurant I had
left earlier. His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38 years. His eyes
were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was
startling. He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that said,
"Jesus is The Never Ending Story."
Then
Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life. He'd
made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen years earlier,
while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona.
He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large tent and some
equipment. A concert, he thought. He was hired, but the tent would not house a
concert but revival services, and in those services he saw life more clearly.
He gave his life over to God.
"Nothing's
been the same since," he said, "I felt the Lord telling me to keep
walking, and so I did, some 14 years now."
"Ever
think of stopping?" I asked.
"Oh,
once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me. But God has given me this
calling. I give out Bibles. That's what's in my sack. I work to buy food and
Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads."
I sat
amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and lived this
way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked:
"What's it like?"
"What?"
"To
walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your
sign?"
"Oh, it
was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments. Once someone
tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly didn't
make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God was using
me to touch lives and change people's concepts of other folks like me." My
concept was changing, too.
We finished
our dessert and gathered his things. Just outside the door, he paused. He
turned to me and said, "Come ye blessed of my Father and inherit the
kingdom I've prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I
was thirsty you gave me drink: a stranger and you took me in."
I felt as if
we were on holy ground. "Could you use another Bible?" I asked. He
said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too
heavy. It was also his personal favorite.
"I've
read through it 14 times," he said.
"I'm
not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our church and see." I
was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very
grateful.
"Where
you headed from here?"
"Well,
I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon."
"Are
you hoping to hire on there for a while?"
"No, I
just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right there
needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next." He smiled, and the warmth
of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to the
town square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it started
raining. We parked and unloaded his things.
"Would
you sign my autograph book?" he asked. "I like to keep messages from
folks I meet."
I wrote in
his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I
encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of scripture, in
Jeremiah, "I know the plans I have for you," declared the Lord,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and
a hope."
"Thanks,
man," he said. "I know we just met and we're really just strangers,
but I love you."
"I
know," I said, "I love you, too."
"The Lord
is good."
"Yes.
He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?" I asked."
A long
time," he replied.
And so on
the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and
I felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his things on his back,
smiled his winning smile and said, "See you in the New Jerusalem."
"I'll
be there!" was my reply.
He began his
journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his bed roll and pack
of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, "When you see something that makes
you think of me, will you pray for me?"
"You
bet," I shouted back, "God bless."
"God
bless." And that was the last I saw of him.
Late that
evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled
hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and
reached for the emergency brake, I saw them.... a pair of well-worn brown work
gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and thought
of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them.
I remembered his words: "If you see something that makes you think of me,
will you pray for me?"
Today his
gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see the world and its
people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique
friend and to pray for his ministry. "See you in the New Jerusalem,"
he said. Yes,
Daniel, I
know I will....
