You Wouldn't Fit In
Sitting at Starbucks, enjoying the beauty that is a two pump caramel macchiato, I was reading on their outside patio. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gentleman approach me in a kind of stagger. I looked up to match gazes with this scruffy looking man. Realizing he was caught staring, he asked me, "What are you reading?" I told him I was reading Connecting (a great book by the way) and showed him the cover to read further. Noticing that he was just staring at the not too appealing book cover without really reading it I said, "It is about mentoring relationships that everyone needs in their life for growth and maturity. I'm reading it for my work." Probing further he asked, "What do you do?" I told him that I am a missionary with WorldVenture and I disciple/ mentor students in the process of missions. In a disgruntled tone he leaned back and said, "Oh! You are one of those Christian people!" I paused to let his statement sink in and replied, "Yes. I am a Christ-follower." Which his quick reply was "I used to be one of those." Curious I asked him what changed. Noticing his need for a bathroom, he said "if you are out here when I come back out, I will tell you." He walked away and my mind and heart started racing in prayer for God to fill me with His truth and words to say and the ability to listen.
He came out refreshed with water and an empty bladder, sat down with the weight of a long hot day, and started in.
After high school his parents refused to support him any longer and therefore gave him an ultimatum to move out on his own. Working simple odd jobs for a high school grad, he quickly found himself without money and soon without work (I believe in listening to him, poor decisions on his behalf). With no where to go he ventured out on the streets for what would be an over 20 year stint. He moved around trying to find work and such, in and out of housing conditions, when a few Moody Bible Institute students found him on the streets of Chicago. These Moody students (an evangelism outreach to the homeless) began a conversation with him that would span several months of talking over Christ and the Bible. Finally, to the joy of the students, he gave his life to Christ and was baptized. He hungered for the Word and read it in his time on the streets and faithfully told his other homeless peers about this Jesus that he had received. In seeing the Moody students again, he asked what he should do next in his new found faith. The Moody students discussed it and said that he needed to get plugged into a local body of believers; a church. Not knowing a good church to go to, he asked the students if he could join them at their church. Their reply:
"Uh... You wouldn't... fit in where we go to church."
As this gentleman told me this, with a callous in his eyes that reflected his inner heart, my heart shattered. I almost started crying on the spot! I inwardly wept for this man and the way the "Church" had treated him. He finished his story, after describing more disappointments by the "Church," by saying, "And this next part was the final straw!" He then told me of a medical condition that he cannot get fixed because he has no money to see the doctor or to get the required medicines. This medical condition causes him to black out and go into seizures. Well, one day he woke up in the hospital with two black eyes, a broken nose, and a tooth missing (which was still gone by the way). Upon waking, he was presented with a bill for services rendered. He then proceeded to call 70 churches in the local area for assistance in this matter and the common response from almost every church was:
"Well... God will provide."
Again my heart sank in my chest. I couldn't believe that not one church would actually help this "brother" out, which no church did. After that experience he said he knew then that "God doesn't care and neither do the people that claim to follow Him!" I literally ached. What do you say to a man who has been so abused by the "Church" to make up for years of mistreatment? I wanted to scream at those churches, "God will provide?!" YEAH! HE PROVIDES THROUGH THE PEOPLE BEING CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST! He provides through us!! Dr. Alban, missions professor at Liberty University, says that, "Man is God's means to the world." I don't know how you will take this encounter and with what you will do with it, but I plea with you not to ignore this atrocity and make a resolution that you will act like Christ, that you will have compassion on those who need compassion.
Proverbs 28:27 - "Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but who hides his eyes will get many a curse."
Matthew 5:42 - "Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." (For a great sermon on this verse please listen to Russ McKendry's sermon titled Getting Over Legalism - Dealing with Vengeance from 07.06.08 at http://www.l2today.com/mount.html )
To the Gentleman: I have left you nameless, but you know who you are if you ever read this. I praise God for our meeting! God does love you and He cares for you. He proved this by sacrificing His Son on a cross that you might be saved by having faith in Him. People are still people, but God never changes. That means that He loved you before you were created and He loves you even now. Seek God. Again I am sorry for how the "Church" treated you. Those people were the only Christ that you really saw and they screwed up. Whenever you start to feel that God doesn't love you anymore, you remember our meeting. I love you and so does God. As I told you before we parted, May God shine His face on you and keep you!