Never look down on someone unless you are helping them get up. ~Unknown
This is a continuation of a post from June 7th, 8th and 9th…
After handing him my Bible he quickly leafed through some pages and turned to the passage below from Philippians and read it to me.
He proceeded to tell me that if he was really walking the Christian walk, it meant that he had to be content WHATEVER the circumstance. He also said that he has been praying without ceasing and trusted that God would take care of him during this most difficult time. But then he also said to me that he was getting dazed and confused because he kept running into dead ends. Regardless, he continued to believe, “he could do everything through Jesus who gives him his strength.” His faith and trust in God along with his knowledge of the Bible totally blew me away.
This of course opened the door for me to talk openly about my faith, and we talked for a good forty-five minutes.
When the waitress came to give me the bill, she told me the restaurant would pay for my friend’s portion of the bill and they also filled up a box of food for him.
As we were getting ready to leave, he thanked me for taking the time to feed him and talk with him. I told him that he had given me so much more than I had given him.
What I didn’t share with him during our conversation was the fact that I was in a very restless state during this period in my life due to recently retiring from my business career. God had spoken a powerful message to me about what it means to be content through a homeless gentleman. God always blesses us when we choose to be a blessing to others.T
Thank God my God-conscious overruled my Jay-conscious.
To pay him back for this message, I told him to jump in my car and I would take him to the bus station and get him a bus ticket to go home to Tampa…he was blown away.
My journal entry for Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 has no scripture or personal reflection noted. The only thing I wrote down for that day was my friend’s name and “No Eggs.”
I am so grateful my hotel did not have eggs that morning, because it allowed me to have my faith strengthened and renewed by someone who had nothing but faith and a content heart…I needed a reminder of both.
P.S. After explaining to my family what had happened upon my arrival back to the hotel an hour later than promised, my father-in-law laughed and told me it had to have been a God thing, because five minutes after I left the hotel, they brought out a big pan of scrambled eggs.
Philippians 4:11-13 (MSG), “Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One (Jesus) who makes me who I am.”
Additional Scripture: Psalm 36:16-17, Proverbs 17:1, Proverbs 22:2, James 2:6, Galatians 2:9-10
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
