The Story of Daniel

It was an unusually cold day for the month of May. Spring had arrived
and everything was alive with color. But a cold front from the North
had brought winter's chill back to Indiana. 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." And so,
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 storefront 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 you headed from here?"
"Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon."

"Are you hoping to hire on there for awhile?"

"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 bed roll 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. 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...

If this story touched you, forward it to a friend!
"I shall pass this way but once. Therefore, any good that I can do or
any kindness that I can show, let me do it now, for I shall not pass
this way again."

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