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| GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS (to meet such a man...) |
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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 towns-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 the 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 from 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 bedroll. "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. God bless you, Daniel, wherever your feet take you.
- Richard Ryan 1993 -
I love stories that touch me and I hope that this one touched you...( but...it really wasn't the story... that touch you felt was the Holy Spirit... )
Whenever I post a blog that is not original, I try to find the history or back-story behind the words (I do the same thing with the Holy Scripture and have found that there are worlds within worlds - so to speak) so that I can properly credit the author. May not seem like a big deal, but many try to say that God didn't write the Bible... really, give credit where is credit is due...
I will admit, I was surprised - not greatly so - when I started to research this story to post in my blog. This a true story. Snopes.com has a page about the story (http://www.snopes.com/glurge/daniel.asp) and lists it as "True" which means that if you share this with a friend, you can state that as far as the facts can tell us, it happened pretty much the way it is presented. I altered the version I'd posted here to be closer to the original telling. Other than the "Forward to at least five people in the next 7 minutes..." it is just as I received in my inbox 3 years ago (did I mention that I love to save tidbits to meditate upon during my daily devotional time? LOL!!!).
Please take a moment to read the Snopes page (as they are not known for their charity towards Christianity and things of a spiritual nature). Also, take a minute to pray for Daniel.
I do not doubt for one minute, that unless he's been taken onto Glory, he still travels the highways and byways of this world.
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| To add a comment to "GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS (to meet such a man...)" |
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| August 18, 2008 |
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| Powerful LV...makes me really look inward...praying for Daniel and checking out Snopes...Blessings |
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| August 18, 2008 |
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Yes, we need to... but when our focus is inward we can miss what HE is doing with all of the lost and hurting people right next to us... and use our prejudice to blind us from His path.
He works in many many ways that we will never understand and can only marvel upon as His glory is revealed - as the writer of this story can attest.
What do you see?
A homeless man or a saint on a mission to share the good news with those who would ridicule him because of his appearance? We cannot ignore our own feelings. They can lie to us. We must trust in the call of the Spirit's leading as Pastor Ryan did with Daniel.
May we all be so blessed as to meet a 'Daniel' while here on earth... |
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| August 19, 2008 |
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| Thanks LV, this is not the first time I read this story...It touched me the very first time I read it....and it teaches us some powerful lessons.....See we never should try to judge a book by it's cover...Many homeless people, or those that look down and out have a real story to tell...if only we take a moment to listen....These kind of stories certainly make me think..and when I see homeless people, I listen to the Lord as to what course of action He would have me to take. Thanks for sharing ;o) |
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| August 19, 2008 |
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| I've read this story before, LV. But THIS time, I learned something about it. THANK YOU for this awesome post!! |
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| August 19, 2008 |
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Mike,
Your welcome!
MarJay, you are right in that we all need to listen and I would add watch to see where He is working and then go there! In my walk, I keep two very salient thoughts close to my heart when I see ones like Daniel; there but by the grace of God go I... and I have never looked in the eyes of someone that God does not love. |
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| August 27, 2008 |
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| I've read it before, and it touches my soul. |
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| August 27, 2008 |
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| Great Story....Beautiful !!......All Manner of Kindness......Matters to God ! |
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| August 27, 2008 |
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I met a man like Daniel....who forever changed my heart and mind. I got the priviledge of living with him in a church in IN, on a mission trip. He was a big man, in size and in heart. He had no job, no income.....but his life was devoted to the streets and the kids who inhabited them. And he didn't worry about tomorrow's food....he knew God would supply.
Before he joined us in the van on the trip there, someone had given him some money. What did he do with it? He went and bought devotionals for the youth that were with us, so he could have class with them every morn!
I was blessed to get to street witness with him...I am bold, ask Suga, but he sooooo encouraged me to be bolder, and I allowed him to lead me in it...I became the "tough love" counselor, lol....
This man had a voice that would send cold chills through you....I can still hear him singing "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship" acapella......and feeling the vibrations through my soul.
As our trip wound down, he got a call at the church....he was being asked to sing a solo at our church's convention that happened to be in IN that year. He had no money for food, room, nor a way home from there, if he did it.....he did it!
To this day, I don't know how he got home, but I'm sure he did, and I'm sure he went back to walking the streets at night in Memphis TN.....reaching out for God.
My life will never be the same.....thanks to his devotion to the Lord :) |
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