Today I met a man that we’ll call Raul. I’ve met so many
people that I honestly forget his name. So Raul comes to mind. Anyways, the
other day I was walking and praying for the
Lord to reveal to me where he wanted me to go. I felt like I was wasting my
time, and of course His time as I walked down a dusty little street and tried
to figure out a logical place to meet somebody. As I turned around to try
another direction, a man came briskly towards me. He was sluring in his spanish
as I was trying to understand him but as he got closer I could see that he was
in tears. Now I’m by far from understanding proper Spanish and so a teammate of
mine came over and tried her best to translate. Raul was asking for help and
wanted some food. Raul had been living on the streets since the earthquake 6
months ago and has been eating from the garbage on the streets. He had a limp
and I could tell a bit inebriated.
He told me that before the earthquake he had a lot of
problems in his life. I’m not sure what they all were but I could tell that he
had a lot of darkness in his past. As everyone around him was running from
their homes and heading away from the destruction of the quake, he just lay
there and a wall fell on top of him. He was crushed and pinned underneath being
slowly suffocated. Luckily 4 men came to his rescue and helped him. Praise the
Lord!!
You see, Raul was upset. He was frustrated. He thanked God
for saving him in a time of utter destruction as his life was spared. “But
why?” He asked. Sure he was alive, and received a second chance, but everything
he had was gone. His house destroyed, no support for food, his job as a
fisherman terminated, no family to aid him, and no place to make a new home.
This man had nothing! He had hope in God to rebuild his life, but God wasn’t
answering his cries. He quoted Jeremiah 33:3, which says, “Call to me and I
will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know”.
Raul wasn’t hearing God’s voice and he thought that God was
punishing him for his past life and that God didn’t care about him. I assured
Raul that God loves him, God created him and even spared him in his sinful
ways. God gave him a second chance. I’ve been blessed with a second chance to
live for Jesus and yet this was still frustrating for me as I tried to relate
to Raul.
Now I’m the kind of person that will help out if I can. I’ll
give time, money if I have, and even more if I have it. The truth is usually I
do have something. I always more than enough food on my table, I always have a
roof over my head, and I always have extra money. I believe that the Lord
provides for us everything we need to live and do His work and I pray about it
knowing that God will provide. So surely I can help this guy out.
To tell you the truth friends, I had nothing to offer this
man. I didn’t have any money on me, no food to give him, no one around me to
borrow money from to pay back later, I had absolutely nothing. In that moment I
have never felt so helpless. I felt horrible as I knew that if I had just one
dollar I could buy this man something….but I didn’t! In trying to have the
answers to this man’s questions and cries it was beyond the needs that I could
help with. I do know that the Lord was with me as I spent time with Raul. I do
know that God loves Raul, and I do know that God has something amazing planned
for this man’s life. Maybe I’ll run into him again, but if not, I do know that
my attitude to help was humbled.
