Daniel’s Gloves

I received this email from a friend Thanksgiving Day and was struck by it.  Please read and then I’ll share.

“Daniel’s Gloves

I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just
off the corner of the town-square. The food and the company were both
especially good that day.

As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There,
walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly
goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, ‘I will work
for food.’ My heart sank.

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around
us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture of sadness
and disbelief.

We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind. We finished
our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to do and quickly set out
to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat
halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing that seeing
him again would call some response. I drove through town and saw nothing of
him. I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.

Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: ‘Don’t go back to the
office until you’ve at least driven once more around the square.’

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the square’s
third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the church, going
through his sack.

I stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to
drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from
God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the town’s
newest visitor.

‘Looking for the pastor?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ he replied, ‘just resting.’

‘Have you eaten today?’

‘Oh, I ate something early this morning.’

‘Would you like to have lunch with me?’

‘Do you have some work I could do for you?’

‘No work,’ I replied ‘I commute here to work from the city, but I would like
to take you to lunch.’

‘Sure,’ he replied with a smile.

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions. Where you
headed?’

St. Louis’

‘Where you from?’

‘Oh, all over;

mostly Florida ..’

‘How long you been walking?’

‘Fourteen years,’ came the reply.

I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the same
restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38
years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and
articulation that was startling.He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red
T-shirt that said, ‘Jesus is The Never Ending Story.’

Then Daniel’s story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life.
He’d made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen years
earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach
in Daytona… He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large
tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought.

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival services,
and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his life over to
God.

‘Nothing’s been the same since,’ he said, ‘I felt the Lord telling me to
keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now.’

‘Ever think of stopping?’ I asked.

‘Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me.  But God has
given me this calling. I give out Bibles, That’s what’s in my sack. I work
to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads.’

I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and
lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I
asked: ‘What’s it like?’

‘What?’

‘To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your
sign?’

‘Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments. Once
someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly
didn’t make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God
was using me to touch lives and change people’s concepts of other folks like
me.’

My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his
things. Just outside the door, he paused He turned to me and said, ‘Come Ye
blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I’ve prepared for you. For when
I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a
stranger and you took me in.’

I felt as if we were on holy ground. ‘Could you use another Bible?’ I asked.

He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too
heavy. It was also his personal favorite.. ‘I’ve read through it 14 times,’
he said.

‘I’m not sure we’ve got one of those, but let’s stop by our church and see’
I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed
very grateful.

‘Where are you headed from here?’ I asked.

‘Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.’

‘Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?’

‘No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right
there needs a Bible, so that’s where I’m going next.’

He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his
mission. I drove him back to the town-square where we’d met two hours
earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his
things.

‘Would you sign my autograph book?’ he asked… ‘I like to keep messages
from folks I meet.’

I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my
life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of
scripture from Jeremiah, ‘I know the plans I have for you, declared the
Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future
and a hope.’

‘Thanks, man,’ he said. ‘I know we just met and we’re really just strangers,
but I love you.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’ ‘The Lord is good!’

‘Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?’ I asked.

A long time,’ he replied

And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I
embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his things
on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, ‘See you in the New
Jerusalem.’

‘I’ll be there!’ was my reply.

He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his
bedroll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, ‘When you see
something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?’

‘You bet,’ I shouted back, ‘God bless.’

‘God bless.’ And that was the last I saw of him.

Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front
had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat
back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw them… a pair of well-worn
brown work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them
up and thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that
night without them.

Then I remembered his words: ‘If you see something that makes you think of
me, will you pray for me?’

Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office.. They help me to see the world
and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with
my unique friend and to pray for his ministry. ‘See you in the New
Jerusalem,’ he said. Yes, Daniel, I know I will…”

So, here is the point to ponder:  “Do I really have the faith and trust in God to live like Daniel?”

Don’t misunderstand me.  It’s not that I feel God is calling me to sell everything we have, pack up the family, and hit the road with our Bibles.  Yet, anyway!  It’s more of a question of do I truly surrender my heart to God daily like Daniel?

Romans 8:14 says, “Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

What does it mean to be “led by the Spirit”?  Os Hillman states, “As sons of God, we are called to be led by the Spirit. This requires a level of dependence on God in which many of us really do not want to invest.  It requires listening, waiting, and moving only when God’s Spirit tells us to move.”

In essence, wasn’t that the life Daniel was leading?  A life totally dependent on God?

Daniel’s story was a great reminder to live totally dependent on God.  If we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33), he will light our path.  Like Daniel’s, this path or “walk” will be one filled with the fruits of the spirit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

God bless!