Have you ever walked on the sidewalks of a big city? Somewhere like downtown Memphis or downtown Nashville? I am sure everyone that is reading this blog has. Do you ever notice the homeless people on the side of the street begging? Or maybe instead of begging you they look at you with their filthy face because they have nowhere to take a shower. I have found out that a lot of these people are desperate for someone to just show them love. They would rather have love than money any day. And most of the people I have met on the streets have a deep relationship with God because they have nothing else to lean on. (Please read this all the way through… I know it is long but it is worth reading)
There are so many homeless people that I pass on the streets every day. Some of the people have been put in that position because they are addicts of some kind. Others are there because they have no family and cannot find a job. Moreover, others are born to women that live on the streets so that is the lifestyle they are forced to grow up in. A lot of these people will dig in the dumpster to have a meal to eat. I once heard that the Subway dumpster is the best dumpster to dig in because they throw away bread and cookies every night when they close. Can you imagine being one of these people that are put in this position? They get insulted because they are drug addicts and cannot for the life of them put the drugs down. These poor people struggle day after day, only wishing they could for once live a lifestyle free from the grasp of drugs. The devil has such a stronghold on their lives and practically the only thing that is going to set them free of this bondage is prayer.
Most of the times I have learned to ignore these people and move on with my daily routine. I use the excuse that there are so many people that are living on the streets that if I stop for all of them I may only take 300 steps in one day and I won’t get to do what I was going to do that day. Other days I just don’t feel like talking to them. I struggle with it because it usually takes valuable time when I stop to talk to a homeless person. But God has put a conviction on my heart for not spending the time to help these people. Please pray that I will be obedient to God’s voice and show these people the love that God has to offer. Most of the time it is more of a blessing to me when I stop than it is to the person I stopped for. I honestly want to start helping these people more often.
One day in Nashville I went to feed the people that were on the streets and I met some amazing people that day. As I was handing out the fruits and drinks I had brought, I ran into this one guy with a guitar, a cowboy hat, and an amazing life story. I ended up talking with this guy for about two hours. He was very appreciative of what I was doing so I immediately started telling him why I was doing it. God had put it on my heart for a couple of weeks to go talk to the homeless in the middle of downtown Nashville. As I continued to talk with this guy he shared some of his feelings and his testimony with me. He was living in an apartment with no electricity that had cockroaches crawling around the floor because that it all he could afford. He stands on one of the corners playing his guitar to afford his little apartment to stay in. He was blind in one eye and had reached a point in his life where he could not get a job. He had been so pissed off at God because of his circumstances that he had written God and the devil off. He told me that he used to follow God and even sing in a choir for the church but life threw some curve balls at him and he fell on his face. The devil strategically lured him back into the world and he stopped worshipping God. The day that I got to talk to him he told me some very personal stuff that had happened to him throughout his life. He also told me some stories of his God experiences. As we continued to talk throughout those couple hours I asked him if he knew any worship songs. He looked at me and said yes I do but it has been a long time since I have played one of these. Then he continued and right before he started playing that worship song he surrendering to God and said “OK GOD, YOU WIN!� I found out that the day before I went downtown, someone else had come downtown with a huge cooler of drinks to pass out to the homeless. She was also there to bring the good news to the streets of Nashville, TN. He had a talk with that lady about God very briefly. Then God used me to talk to the same guy the next day for two hours. He told me that he had been arguing with God for a while asking him why God let him be in the situation he was in. Moreover, that week he cursed God and told God that he needed to prove that he was still there for him. Therefore, God sent ordinary people to talk to him. I was one of those ordinary people God sent to him on that special day.
