Clan Crest Lennox - courtesy of www.scotclans.com

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Listening to a child's innocent prayer

Today was just another rainy day in Bremerton. Throwing rain jackets on and running from building to car in an attempt to stay dry as we ran errands this morning was my frustration for the day. Yet as I drove down the road and looked over there was a man sitting against a fence looking out at an open field, obviously homeless. Stop, a chance to share the Gospel with my daughter. You see when an adult looks at a homeless man we immediately think about what an inconvenience they are in our lives. Yeah sure maybe we feel good at helping out at the local food and homeless shelter in our town but when we drive by yet another person holding up a sign wanting food, I mean money, wait I mean food, wait they want to just take my hard earned money, and I quickly drive by because I really don't know what to do because I really don't want to be bothered by these feelings right now. I lose the chance to share the Gospel Message with them, and with my children.

Desiree's reaction to the homeless man was completely unprompted by me. She felt genuine love for that man. To see his situation change. She thought we could share our house with him. It's a beautiful thought. Sharing our house with someone that doesn't have one. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with my daughter that our human nature goes towards wanting to fix the problem rather than trusting God with the situation. Desiree wouldn't understand if I told her that we couldn't share our house with that man because we don't know if we can trust him. She doesn't understand what it means to not trust someone. Rather than teaching her not to trust someone I wanted to teach her to trust in God. I wanted to show her that God is bigger than that man's situation. That the best thing we could be capable of doing for that man was to pray for him! So she did and was it the most beautiful, innocent prayer about a man that was in a lost and desperate situation. She put her whole heart into trusting God that He loved him more than we could ever try to fix his situation.

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