Walking into old town Riga, I was overcome by sensations.
It is quite like walking down the boardwalk.
Food carts filling your nose with salty meats grilling, souvenir peddlers charging way too much for their amber necklaces, and all types of music being played by street performers.
There was one boy in particular that caught my eye.
He couldn’t have been more then twelve, jamming out on his saxophone.
At first sight I thought it was adorable! I wanted to join in with the outer tourists, and hand all my coins over to him.
A child performing on the street! Who would have thought!
But then I began to look closer.
I noticed the stained clothing, and his skinny frame.
I saw his messy hair, and the desperation that clung to him.
The true direness of his situation began to wash over me.
How much of this money did this boy actually get?
How much of the money that he was bring in was actually going to him, and how much was going to the people who were exploiting him.
All the people rushing by on the streets saw the cute talented young boy.
I saw the hopeless face of a child slave.
Walking away I felt guilty, but hey. What could I do? If I gave money it wouldn’t go toward helping him anyway.
An hour passed and I decided to head home, not much was going on in old town. I made my way toward the tram stop.
The tram I was hoping to catch, was unfortunately pulling away right as I ran up.
The next one was not for another ten minutes.
Great.
Standing at the tram stop I looked around,and saw the McDonnalds in the distance that was right by where the young boy was standing, playing his music.
‘Go. Feed him’ the Lord whispered to me.
I sighed. That was well out of my way. If I went all the way over there then I would miss my tram, and would have to walk home.
‘Go. Show him that someone sees him, loves him’
I could always go tomorrow. If the boy was still there that is….
‘Lord’ I thought ‘if you really want me to go over there tell me again’
Thats when I remembered what I heard once.
‘The Lord does not need to tell you to love people! Of Course He wants you to love them! The only reason you are asking Him if you should is because you are hoping he will tell you no!’
Thats when it hit me.
The enemy doesn’t have to make us do horrible things, he doesn’t even have to twist our thoughts to keep the kingdom held back. He just needs to convince us not to take action. He tells us that our ideas are good! But tries to convince then that we don’t have to do them now, if at all. He tries to make us put off doing anything. By doing so he is very successfully keeping us from spreading the kingdom. He doesn’t care if we are Christian, as long as we leave everyone else alone.
He slyly whispers in our ears ‘noooooo, you don’t have time to do that!’ or ‘hey, thats a good idea, you should do that tomorrow’
He will do anything to keep us from taking action.
He is sneaky!
Next think I know, I am at McDonnalds's buying a couple sandwiches, and handing them over to the young boy.
I would like to say that his face lit up, and that we had a heart warming conversation, where I told him all about Jesus.
In reality he took the bag, said thanks, put it on the ground and kept playing his saxophone.
But I have to have faith.
Faith that the Lord is working in the little boys life.
Faith that I was able to love him, show him that he is not forgotten about.
And you know what? I got to walk the 15 minutes home, and spend the entire thing fighting for that little boy!
Our God is so good.
