Compelled to Pray

He was slouched on the bench under the awning at the bus stop in our affluent community. The streets were relatively empty at that early hour as I headed to church in my nice warm vehicle, otherwise I might not have even noticed him, and perhaps he would have preferred that I didn’t. But something about his baggy frayed blue jeans only partially concealing well-worn brown shoes (with a hole in one toe), the faded plaid blue shirt with the buttons fastened not quite right over his paunch, and the indiscriminate floppy hat pulled down over his jowly face caught my attention while I waited at the red light. His eyes were closed to the world, and his utter exhaustion was evident in the glaring light of the sunny winter morning. I imagined that years of homelessness, hunger, heavy drinking, and loneliness had taken their toll, but I knew only God knew his true story. My heart was touched, and I prayed for him to know the loving hand of my Father. 

I’m not usually very observant of my surroundings (much to my husband’s dismay!) but several days later, the Lord brought another man to my attention. It was again in our nice neighborhood and this time it was closer to noon and the traffic was heavy. Vehicles whizzed by him and passersby simply walked around him. His rickety wheelchair was parked squarely in the middle of the sidewalk as though it had simply petered out about 20 feet from the busy intersection. I couldn’t see his features at all. The hood of his long black coat covered almost his entire face as he was slumped a bit forward, and the coat itself covered nondescript loose baggy trousers which hung loose on his gaunt frame. One pantleg had been chopped off at the knee where his left leg also ended. It’s always hard to know what to do in these situations, isn’t it? I thought of stopping to offer help, to make sure he was breathing, to greet him with some dignity, and I have done all those things in the past in similar circumstances. But as the light changed to green, I was compelled this time to “just” pray, so I did. I knew my Daddy could handle things much better than I, and though my heart broke, I turned the corner and trusted Him.