Daniel’s Gloves – author unknown
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, and “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 for 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.”
Then 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 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
have 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 are
you headed from here?” I asked.
“Well, I
found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.”
“Are you
hoping to hire on there for a while?”
“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 bedroll
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.
Later 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.
Then 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...
“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.”
