I sensed there would be a park to the left … but for some unfathomable reason I drove straight … I looked … there was a park there and I had missed it and the car in front of me took the one I had my eye on …
“Blow!”
I drove up well past where I needed to go for bread and the much-needed coffee. I had a frantic morning of drop offs, collecting clothes, getting food for children, and pick ups from ballet before I headed back to the conference at church, a 30 plus minute drive away …
As I pulled into the park in front of the post office I wondered if there would be a God assignment … and I recalled the treasure hunt God encounter from a couple of years before … there was no-one there … I shrugged, figuring God knew I was way too busy to stop anyway …
I quickly headed up to the stores I needed to visit, got my “stuff” and walked briskly back … forgetting the thoughts of before, focused on getting my coffee home so I could relish a little bit of chocolate that was sitting on my kitchen bench before I started the whole crazy pace of life again …
As I approached the post office I noticed a man sitting in the sunshine, he looked homeless, so I started praying for him as I strode firmly towards my car … warm coffee in hand, relishing the thought of maybe 10 minutes on my own with a little piece of chocolate and coffee … but as I prayed for this stranger I knew that God wanted me to stop, go back to him and offer to pray … it was time to stop for the one …
I turned, walked up to him smiling and excused my interruption. I explained I was a Christian and had felt that I should offer to pray, and told him that rather than walk past him and pray for him privately, I was to stop for him at that moment …
He looked and said “yes”, so I asked for his hand and as he looked up at me he gently said would I please sit by his side …
I did a quick mummy calculation … time to sit? … I had two children to collect, 10 minute drive there, clothes to collect from home, food to get ready, children had to be changed …
I sat.
I knew the children would be safe, the chocolate would be nearly as good without the coffee, and giving my time here was of eternal benefit, as compared with my own strong desire to steal 10 minutes on my own.
It was God’s heart.
He started to tell his story …
He was Polish, had fought in a war, seen people die, was lonely, was divorced, and had sat here friendless day after day watching people … happy people … walk past him and never stopping … no-one loved him he said …
I looked into his eyes and said,
“Well God does! He asked me to stop for you. I was praying for you as I walked past, but He said to stop for you because He loves you …”
And I prayed, in the sunshine, holding the hand of a dishevelled and broken stranger, drinking coffee as I sat on a bench outside our local post office …
I prayed and searched God for the words, for the insight … and all I could think of was to pray for Peace, for a sense of God’s love to flow into him, for Hope and for Joy … I prayed for friends and companionship, and that he would know and sense the Holy Spirit, that he would feel God and know he was never alone …
He told me more of his story …
He no longer saw friends, suffered with depression, he had been raised a Catholic, but he had given it the … flick … (and he gestured violently with his arms) … and in rebellion against his father he had joined the army and flung himself out of planes … he had been married and had a child who he never saw … he would sit on this bench and no-one would stop … “but you did” he said …
I felt God prompt me to give him my husband’s mobile number … I did … and we chatted briefly about the testimonies I had heard from David Wagner at the conference and how David had been suicidal but he couldn’t successfully kill himself … he said he had tried to kill himself too … I then told him some of Graham Cooke’s story (click here for testimony) and he relished the testimonies of two men one so damaged and broken as a young boy who had tried to kill himself so many times the other also broken as a young boy and running from the law … and how both had become full of a loving God, working miracles and signs and wonders and how they were fully whole … his eyes lit up at the possibilities …
I mentioned church, and gave the details but I knew that was too much of a step for him … I knew I had to invite him into my world … our world, instead … I didn’t want to I had befriended mentally ill people before, and I knew it could be an intense experience … and anyway … he was a man … not my job …
I then felt God prompt me to give him the CD pack I had in my bag for a friend. It was a Bill Johnson CD pack called Enduring Faith. The first CD had been recorded a week or two prior to Bill Johnson’s father dying and the second CD had been recorded the week after … it was a powerful and strong message of faith when it appears the victory is gone …
I argued with God.
These CD’s were for my friend. I had promised to lend them to her. They had our surname written on them, and our home phone number. I had given him my husbands first name. He could work out where we lived. He was a stranger, a man, I have young children … the thoughts flooded my mind … the fears, the “what ifs” …
I listened again … and I gave him the CDs …
As I left him smiling on the bench in the sunshine he told me he had planted tomatoes and they were growing on his balcony (he wasn’t homeless after all) … and he was looking forward to the crop … I could see he had caught some hope … and he said he would sit there again and wait to see if I would walk past again some time soon …
I jumped into my car, with the thoughts rushing through my head of what I needed to accomplish next, and as I drove past I waved to him, and he waved back, still smiling … and as I did I knew we were to be the community he so earnestly desired, wanted, needed. I could see him whole …
I could see him full of Jesus, I could see him as God saw him …
We were to invite him into our world … we were to be the hands and feet of Jesus to him and so we were to invite him into our world, into a world with Jesus … and in doing so we would be inviting him into the family of Christ … and in doing so I trust that he will know that …
God is Good!
This is so powerful. May I ask a question? There are times I am moved by someone I see and I want to stop and ask to pray, but I have never experienced what you have….words from God to pray. What if I ask and start to pray and have no specific leading or words to pray? Is that still ok…to step out anyway?
Did you always have words come…or was there a time you just stood in faith without an actual leading as to what to pray specifically.
Hey there! I often have no idea what He is going to do … Bill Johnson says faith is spelt “risk” 🙂 Often you will “hear” a word or “sense” a need or you may even “feel” a pain somewhere in your body which is God’s way of directing your words/prayers … sometimes I just use my head … logic … sometimes I think “oh my gosh I soooo missed it” and felt I had NO idea but then later I hear from those people it was spot on … other times I just miss it 🙂 He loves us anyway and you will feel His pleasure. He just loves us wanting to hear from Him for ourselves and for others … It really is stepping out of the boat. Is there prophetic training at your church? If not, when you are ready I can recommend some teaching on the topic … however, the fastest and most sure way of learning is stepping out so you have to hear from Him and you know what … you do because He is good! Most importantly … you already DO hear … I have read enough of your life to know you hear and you hear well … you are an amazing powerful, loving remarkable woman … and as Holy Spirit encourages you, you will know that you hear more and more … and He will also start telling you WHO you are and show you YOU through HIS eyes … and you will know how amazing you are! I still doubt at times and then I strengthen myself with past testimonies and choose to believe I hear … and I always figure … He wants to touch them, speak to them more than I do … so He will always work it out for me … because … God is Good 🙂
Thank you for taking the time to go into such great detail with me. One thing I have learned from what I am walking through…life here as we know it is SHORT and I am stepping out. It’s time to do what I am here to do. No more complacent and sluggish living for me. God is too precious and people are too precious. Time is short.
Thank you for reading my blog. Sorry the commenting didn’t work. Maybe because it is private it has some complications? That post bubbled out unexpectantly. 🙂
Guess what … I am still in shock … and you, my friend, will get a kick out of this! I will post it in a day or two but gotta tell someone. I finished my post and I felt God suggest a coffee … which was strange because I usually spend time with Him when M is at kindy and I had work to do … I get in the car and drive up to the shop and the guy I just wrote about was walking up the street …!!! So, I walked up and said “hello” and bought a coffee for him and we had a big long chat … although I still hesitated inviting him to our group tonight … will let my husband do that one 🙂 we still had some time, and he said he made new friend two days ago (the day after I asked for this in my prayer) … God is so funny and so very very good!
This is so awesome!!! Thank you for sharing it so quickly. GOD IS GOOD! He is so good.
Jessie I tried to comment on your post … we were posting simultaneously on either side of the world 🙂 and I cannot get into comment … 🙁 It is a wonderful post and a powerful testimony! XXX
I loved reading this xxxx
Oh I got tears in my eyes reading this…what a beautiful, compassionate, kind God we serve…the God of the Universe holds stars in His hands and yet he takes time to love and encourage one lonely sad man…this truly melts my heart…oh yes God is so very very good…bless you so richly for being His hands and feet and voice…
It was amazing.
Wait until you read the next instalment 🙂
There’s more?!! Well I guess I’ll just have to keep the tissues close at hand!! 🙂
PS I was at conference too…nothing short of absolutely brilliant and out-of-the-ball-park inspiring! God spoke so many wonderful promises…wow! A brand new friend (Sally N) told me of your blog this morning so I had to check it out…and I think I’ll be visiting often! Love what you’ve got to say! God bless you heaps! 🙂
Yes – conference brilliant. I am delighted you got so much from it.
Sally N is wonderful too!
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Already done! And as for conference…wow wow wow! God just kept speaking and confirming in the most creative and delightful ways…honestly, He just keeps wrecking my heart…love it! And yes, Sally’s passion and faith are just awesome! Isn’t it amazing how God is raising up so many crazy-for-Jesus people who love and long to demonstrate His goodness?!! I think the most heart-stirring ‘unveiling’ has well and truly begun…the world will surely increasingly see how good our God truly is!!
Amen!