I am a little obsessive when it comes to listening to music when I’m driving. I’m the person that doesn’t switch the gear from park until I’ve started a song. So one night, after I got off work, I was blasting worship music and singing my lungs out (terribly, I might add), and I went to get some tacos before heading home.
The whole way there, I was proclaiming my faith and singing truth that I believe with all that am, when I was met with an opportunity to put that into action. There was a man at the corner of the gas station in tattered clothes, with a sign asking for help. At this point, I was a at a crossroads. I wanted to get my food, get out, and head home after a long day. But the whole way there, I had been singing songs and proclaiming my love for a God who, in his holy Scripture, says that what I do to the “least of these” I do unto him.
Long story short, conviction weighed in. A gentleman came out and had gotten him food, so I figured I would get him drinks and snacks. It wasn’t the first time conviction had struck my heart in this area, so I always made it a point to ask what their favorite things were. He told me, so I cleared out the gas station’s supply of A&W Root Beer.
Upon handing him the several bags of root beer, he proceeded to tell me his story. In the middle of it, I got this compelling urge to sit on the ground next to him. At this point, he wasn’t just Jared, a retired army veteran who was addicted to meth. He wasn’t an inconvenience on my Friday night when I was tired and hungry after a long day at work. He wasn’t just some guy. He was God’s son. He was a man, broken and in need, just like me. So how dare my body language portray something that wasn’t aligning with my heart?
So I got down on that bird-poop-encrusted concrete while he told me his dreams and aspirations for the future. He teared up and thanked me for listening. I prayed with him (laying hands on him, not from afar) and went on my way.
Driving away from that encounter, I was convinced that God had given that to me for my heart, and that I shouldn’t make a post about it on Facebook or Instagram. That I wasn’t to parade it around as some badge of honor to make myself seem holy. But at CG with my high school sophomores, I knew I had to share it with them, for the sole purpose of helping them realize that every single person they come into contact with, no matter who they are, is just like them, broken and in need of our Savior.