Journey

His South Carolina accent told me he wasn't from around here even before he informed me of such. He had missed his south-bound bus home and was looking for a way to get back on the road. He hadn't eaten for a couple of days, either.

After he devoured the warmed-up can of ravioli I'd microwaved, he asked if I could give him the small amount of money needed to change his bus ticket to the one leaving later that night. Cash is something I know enough not to do, so I came up with some other viable options for him.

I offered to go to the bus station to change the ticket and pay small amount with my credit card to get him home.

That was not acceptable to him because he said it was asking too much of me.

I offered to connect him with some emergency services that would help him get home.

That was not acceptable to him because he said those services were for people with much bigger problems than his.

I offered to help him contact relatives in South Carolina so they could get him a ticket.

That was not acceptable to him because he said it would create too much work and bother for them.

I returned to my first offer and directed him to my van so he and I could drive the few blocks back to the bus station where he could catch his bus.

That was not acceptable to him. He had a solution in mind, that being him receiving a few dollars so he could change the ticket himself. Nothing else would be acceptable.

I asked him if he wanted to go back to South Carolina.

"Yes!" he said, exasperated and a bit angry that I couldn't seem to grasp this basic concept. I reviewed his options.

He came back with a plan for me to go to an ATM to get money to give him so he could change his ticket.

I said no. He started crying.

"I just want to get home. I just need to get home!"

He then got up, walked out of the church, and disappeared into the night.

Over the next couple of days I saw him walking the streets, despondent, angry, frustrated, and clutching an expired bus ticket in his left hand.

I wish I knew how to not be like this guy. I don't always know how to take help from people or from God, especially if I've been traveling alone for a while. I can spend so much time and energy designing plans and solutions that I limit the range of what help is acceptable. I can only see one possible way home.

And when my plans were generated in a state of hunger, especially in emotional or spiritual hunger, warmed-up canned responses from those around me don't offer enough strength and clarity for me to see any differently.

I know that being open to plans beyond what I can conceive is where I can experience miraculous grace. I mean, if Moses had spend his whole day demanding that God build a bridge he would not have heard the call to raise his staff and have an unexpected path home open up for him and his people.

But knowing and acting on that knowledge are two different things. Trust is a key element in moving to action. When I'm feeling out of place in a world that's unresponsive to my solutions, my ability to trust falls. My blinders make me blind.

What if I had spent a few more minutes with the South Carolinian man, empathizing with his emotions and state of mind rather that jumping straight to alternative solutions? Maybe we both could have realized that his unstated goal was to find some dignity and worth. He might have been more open to plans different than his own that would have taken him home had we spent some time developing basic trust.

Perhaps if I can recognize when I'm fixated on a single solution that I need to listen and trust God and those He has placed in my path. I have to remember that He wants me to get me back to the journey He's sent me on and that He has a way beyond what I can see.

Lord, remind me that my thoughts are not Your thoughts and my ways are not Your ways. Let me journey in trust.

Invisible

The principal of the neighborhood elementary school and I were visiting in her office. We were chatting about plans for the upcoming semester, coordinating schedules, and broader neighborhood issues.

While we were talking I mentioned that several students from the school had spent a week in the woods at the church's camp the previous summer.

She asked who had gone and I casually rattled off a list of a half-dozen boys. She stopped, gave me an odd look, stood up, walked over to her desk, picked up a file, and opened it.

She said, "Tell me again who went to the camp?"

She seemed to be checking off the names of the kids in her file as I said them.

She closed the file, looked at me, and said, "I knew something had happened to those boys this summer. There's been something different about them this year. I didn't know what and I've been trying to put my finger on it. Now I know."

I had been at camp that summer. In fact, I had been a cabin counselor to those boys. By the end of the week, the collective prayer of the entire staff was, "Thank God it's over!" It had not gone well.

Or so we thought.

Because sometimes fruit is invisible. Yes, we knew we were trying to plant seeds in the kids lives. But those boys were moving targets the entire week and we were pretty certain they had dodged all the seeds we tried to scatter.

But something took root in them. It might have been something we had sewn or it might have been a seed or two that were drifting on the Wind that we knew nothing about. Or most likely it was some combination thereof.

And the seeds took root. And they bore fruit.

Invisible fruit.

Fruit that none of us at church could see. Fruit that we didn't see out on the streets. Fruit they couldn't really see at the school, but they knew something was there; they just couldn't put a finger on it.

It's in these moments that I get a little hint about the depth of faith and trust we need if we're trying to be about the work of the Kingdom. We need to trust that when we try to sew seeds that once in a while some will take root. We need faith to know that sometimes the fruit is invisible. We need to live in the peace that can come from faith and trust, especially when the fruit is invisible.

And in the midst of the moments when someone notices something different that they just can't put their finger on, we can experience a glimpse and echo of what Isaiah was trying to say when he wrote, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped." (Isaiah 35:5)

Lord, forgive me my desire to always see the fruit of the seeds I've tried to plant on Your behalf. Let me sew seeds in faith and trust today.