Worth Reading 

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 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 awhile?"
"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....

If this story touched you, PLEASE forward it to a
friend!

Tom Thomas