I had just jumped on the 110 freeway heading to my place from downtown LA and looked down to see the Orange warning light come on for gas. Even though I have a Toyota Corolla which is amazing on Gas mileage I wasn’t going to chance getting stuck on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic. So I pulled off to an area that could be considered sketchy. There was an overwhelming amount of homeless people and all of a sudden this sadness came over me thinking that God loves these people as much as anybody else yet they just don’t have any hope.
I continued my search for a gas station with a heavy heart of this feeling I couldn’t do anything about. So I just prayed, God if you want me to help somebody or tell them about the hope found in you bring them my way. Now on the search for who God is going to send, I looked around and there was this guy washing windows.. I thought that he had to be the one. If he comes this way I will talk to him. So I continued to pump gas waiting for him to come over and as I was waiting I heard a shout from about 15 feet away ” Hey when are you going to give me my car back?”
I was extremely confused on what was going on, I looked at him and said “Your car?” Thinking this guy is crazy why would he think this car that I just pulled up in was his? So I asked him what he was talking about and he said “That car that I let you barrow (as he points to my Toyota), when am I going to get it back?” He looked at me and knew I was confused because it was all over my face and I didn’t know what to say or do. So he finally budged and said he was just messing around with me and my face was priceless!
At that point I knew that God had sent this man into my life for a reason so I wanted to find out what that reason was so I simply asked him if he was homeless and what his story was. He went on to tell me how his wife had left him and kicked him out on the street with nothing while cheating on him with another man and woman. But he said something that triggered my attention. He said “Maybe God wanted this to happen for a reason.” And right then I knew that God was telling me to encourage him back into the faith. So I continued to listen to his story which was pretty amazing.
He had been running from God all this time and saw that God was allowing these things to happen to draw him back to God. The next thing that happend just blew me away! He started to talk about God in a way that was so full of joy that his face lit up with a smile that I knew he had fallen in love with his Lord and Savior once again.
When he was a child his blind pastor had prophesied over him saying that he was going to be a minister of the Gospel. After that he turned away from the Lord and stop going to church. About 5 years later his grandma brought him back to church and His blind pastor reached out and grabbed his hand and knew that it was Michael. He said to him that he had a dream that he would be preaching Christ. Until this day he had been running from God, but after we talked I had this feeling like he was going to tell everybody the good news of Jesus Christ, starting with the people on the streets. I believe that He can change lives with the power of the Good news of Jesus Christ.
This story really touched me, probably more then Michael. It was just listening to the Holy Spirit’s leading and stepping out in faith that told me to just listen to his story of hardship and love him the way that Christ has loved me. This has impacted his life forever to preach Jesus and mine by seeing the fruits of obedience.
As we were talking two police officers came over and looked at Michael and saw a homeless beggar looking for money and said he had to go. I looked at the cop and said, this is my brother in Christ and we are just having an amazing conversation about God. The officer looked at me confused and said ok, just move your conversation elsewhere because you can’t be here. As we parted ways, I gave him a little bible because the only one he had was to big to carry around and some change (because that’s all I had) and prayed for him.
Everyday we have these opportunities to change peoples lives for Christ. Pray that God would open your eyes to see them and then walk out in faith. It will change your life!
Please keep Michael in your prayers and know that we all need some encouragement to follow after Christ.
