I WILL WORK FOR FOOD

 

   It was an unusually cold day for the month of April.  Spring had arrived and everything was alive with color.  But a cold front from the North had  brought winter's chill back to Kentucky.  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 have 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 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 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, forward it to a friend! "I shall pass this  way but once.  Therefore, any good that I can do or any kindness that I  can show, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again."