MILLION DOLLAR TWENTY…
This is a post from the days of xanga. This is four years to the day that I posted this. It is unreal that God cultivated this four years ago to the day in me. We were in Nashville on our Remedy Tour and this lines up completely with what happened at Crosspoint.tv tonight. Love to hear your thoughts:
Rodney looked like any other homeless guy that I had seen. He was not properly bathed or in nice cloths. He stumbled into the center on Wednesday of our inner city mission trip. He was looking to make five dollars by offering to wash the van at the center where we were working. Their policy is that they do not give out money, but they will help you get to a shelter to get some cloths and a place to sleep. They did let him wash the van (I think to give him some dignity in feeling like he had earned his keep) and then I was asked if I could take him to the shelter a few miles away. I went in the kitchen and got him some food and we were on our way. My buddy Shelby and I begin to engage Rodney in conversation. He was from New Orleans and had recently gotten out of jail. His brother lived in Dallas and thought that it would be best for him to get away from his old lifestyle and move to the big “D”. We talked for a few more moments and then we pulled into the shelter. We got out of the car and were trying to figure out where he needed to be. As we got ready to pull away he turned and asked me about the $5 that it was going to cost him to go into the shelter. I began to reach into my pocket and realized that the only thing that I had on me was a twenty dollar bill. Now you have to understand, I grew up in Baltimore and D.C. and was always told you never give money to a homeless person, because they will either smoke it away, or drink it away.
Now here is the crazy thing. Has God every whispered something in your ear so clearly that you could not help but listen? With all that I had I fought this whisper, but God kept saying, “Give him the twenty, he is going to use it to bless others with.” I looked Rodney in the eye and with all I had I said, “Here is a little extra, I hope that you will put it to good use to bless others.” At that moment I was feeling pretty good about myself and the blessing I had gotten to be to this man that was down on his luck, but then God humbled me. As he realized what he had in his hand he began to weep out loud. Here was this massive man standing in front of a shelter with many other men in his situation standing around and he was crying like a little baby. I really did not know what to do, but I knew that I had just been reminded of how blessed I really am. I looked at Shelby and he looked at me and we did the only thing we knew to do. We prayed for Rodney right there in front of that shelter. From there we got back into our fancy car, with our fancy cloths, and our twenty dollar bills and we drove away from that shelter. As I looked in the rear view mirror I could see that Rodney was walking away still crying and again God reminded me that sometimes we forget what is valuable and what is not. To Rodney that 20 was like a million dollars, yet we just throw our money and possessions around without a care, almost like we deserve them. Today, I pray that we all be reminded that all of our blessings should be seen in the same way that Rodney saw that $20 bill. Like we have just been given a million dollars.
