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Hey. May this testimony bless, encourage, inspire and challenge you. I Just want to tell you something that happened on Friday night. On Friday at around 9:45pm, I asked work if I could go home 15 minutes early as I was tired and wanted to go home to sleep as I was up at 7am as I was in work early the next day. I was told it was ok, so I went home. So I was walking to my car when a, what I thought, homeless guy came to me and asked me for 20p for bus fair. Now as I say, I was tired and wanted to go home so I could have easily told him to go away. But he touched my heart so I told him, "look, I won't give you money but if you like, I will go to the chippy and buy you some food." He said he would rather have the food than the money anyway. So we walked to the chip shop and we started talking. He asked:
Guy - "so what are you doing over the weekend."
Me - "I'm going to work tomorrow, then going to church on the Sunday."
Guy -"are you one of those born again Christians?"
Me - " yes I am"
Guy - "wow that's funny, a friend of mine has recently became a born again Christian and he is totally transformed. He was a bang at it addict but overnight stopped and changed his life around. I don't understand it myself but I need some of that."
We stopped the chat for then as we reached the chip shop. He asked the guy at the till:
Guy - "can I have some chips please?"
Me - "you sure you don't want fish with that?"
Guy - "you sure?"
Me - "yeah. Do you want curry sauce with it or something?
Guy - "can I have mushy peas please?
Me - "yeah, do you want any drinks with that?"
Guy - "you sure, I don't want to take the pee.
Me - "it's not a problem. I just want to bless you"
Guy - "thank you, yes please. Can I have some juice?"
Me - "yeah sure. Give us 5 drinks of juice please mate"
Guy - "my goodness, thanks so much for this"
The cashier looked visibly emotional when he asked for the money! So blessed. So when we left the chip shop he opened up and started to tell me his story. He started to get emotional so I asked him "would you like me to sit with you so you can get all this off your chest" he said, "yes please, that would be great". I won't go into detail as I would be writing this for ages. But I will tell you some of the main stuff. If turned out he had lived on the streets for 8 years. He was an addict that stopped taking hard drugs but had transferred his drug addiction to alcohol. He said he became an addict to block out the pain of loosing a lot of friends and family in a short space of time. So he turned to drugs. But because it got out of hand and took hold of his life, he could not keep up with the rent so got evicted and took to the streets. He told me he was now off the drugs but was now an alcoholic. He asked:
Guy - "which do you think is worse? Drugs or alcohol?"
Me - "they are the same, an addiction is an addiction"
Guy - "but I don't know how to stop all this! It's so difficult!
Me - "at my church, we have a place that helps people in recovery. If you would like to, we could go there together one day and see if you like it"
Guy - "yeah that would be great. I need all the help I can get"
He then started talking to me about his health. He walked with a limp. And he showed me why. He pulled up his trouser leg and showed me a load of compression bandages. It turned out that when he injected drugs, he sometimes did not hit a vain so he developed ulcers on both his legs and one was going to his bone he said he was scared and did not know what to do. I told him I believe God can heal and has healed a whole load of people in the past so I invited him to our healing meetings on a Tuesday. He said he would love to as he would try anything to be healed and get off the drink.
He then said he struggled to get food and eat so he had to beg all the time in order to eat. But he was scared of getting caught begging as its an offence to do so. I told him that our church give out food parcels to those that can not afford to eat. I said "is there nothing your church does not do. Where is this church!" So I told him it was called renewal, and how to get there. He then told me he suffered from chronic depression and he could feel it coming on as he was opening up to me. I asked if he wanted me to pray for him. He did so in the middle of the street, with people walking past (alot faster when the walked passed a guy praying) I started praying for him. After the prayer, he told me it was the best prayer he had ever had over him and he felt so much more lighter as a result. Now there is more to the story, like I gave him a lift to where he slept! Now I would not recommend this in most circumstances but because the Holy Spirit was over me, I asked. It was only when it was out that I started panicking! I was driving thinking "please don't get out a knife, don't take out a knife!" But nothing happened and we got to where he slept and he turned round and said "thank you so much for giving me your time. You are the nicest person I have ever met. God bless you." He hugged me and kissed my cheek and left. I was rejoicing that I had touched someone that could not pay back what I had give him with and was very emotional.
Now I could have quite easily not done any of this because I was tired and wanted to get home. I could have left work on time. I could have labelled him tramp, addict, smelly person, dangerous etc that would have stopped me blessing him. So I encourage you, look past all the labels you give people and see them for who the are, human with a little more baggage than you. Don't let your own prejudice stop you from blessing someone today or any other day. To all Christian friends, don't just preach the gospel, live it! And when you do, amazing things will happen. In the grand scheme of things, I only spent £10.50 of my money and 2 hours of my time so it was not really that much compared to how much that blessed him. You don't even have to do all that. The only reason I did was because I felt compassion for him that came from God. You only have to say a word of encouragement that can lift someones day. Just do something.
Thanks for reading. May the Lord bless you, encourage you and inspire you to look past your own world to bless someone. God bless you!
Guy - "so what are you doing over the weekend."
Me - "I'm going to work tomorrow, then going to church on the Sunday."
Guy -"are you one of those born again Christians?"
Me - " yes I am"
Guy - "wow that's funny, a friend of mine has recently became a born again Christian and he is totally transformed. He was a bang at it addict but overnight stopped and changed his life around. I don't understand it myself but I need some of that."
We stopped the chat for then as we reached the chip shop. He asked the guy at the till:
Guy - "can I have some chips please?"
Me - "you sure you don't want fish with that?"
Guy - "you sure?"
Me - "yeah. Do you want curry sauce with it or something?
Guy - "can I have mushy peas please?
Me - "yeah, do you want any drinks with that?"
Guy - "you sure, I don't want to take the pee.
Me - "it's not a problem. I just want to bless you"
Guy - "thank you, yes please. Can I have some juice?"
Me - "yeah sure. Give us 5 drinks of juice please mate"
Guy - "my goodness, thanks so much for this"
The cashier looked visibly emotional when he asked for the money! So blessed. So when we left the chip shop he opened up and started to tell me his story. He started to get emotional so I asked him "would you like me to sit with you so you can get all this off your chest" he said, "yes please, that would be great". I won't go into detail as I would be writing this for ages. But I will tell you some of the main stuff. If turned out he had lived on the streets for 8 years. He was an addict that stopped taking hard drugs but had transferred his drug addiction to alcohol. He said he became an addict to block out the pain of loosing a lot of friends and family in a short space of time. So he turned to drugs. But because it got out of hand and took hold of his life, he could not keep up with the rent so got evicted and took to the streets. He told me he was now off the drugs but was now an alcoholic. He asked:
Guy - "which do you think is worse? Drugs or alcohol?"
Me - "they are the same, an addiction is an addiction"
Guy - "but I don't know how to stop all this! It's so difficult!
Me - "at my church, we have a place that helps people in recovery. If you would like to, we could go there together one day and see if you like it"
Guy - "yeah that would be great. I need all the help I can get"
He then started talking to me about his health. He walked with a limp. And he showed me why. He pulled up his trouser leg and showed me a load of compression bandages. It turned out that when he injected drugs, he sometimes did not hit a vain so he developed ulcers on both his legs and one was going to his bone he said he was scared and did not know what to do. I told him I believe God can heal and has healed a whole load of people in the past so I invited him to our healing meetings on a Tuesday. He said he would love to as he would try anything to be healed and get off the drink.
He then said he struggled to get food and eat so he had to beg all the time in order to eat. But he was scared of getting caught begging as its an offence to do so. I told him that our church give out food parcels to those that can not afford to eat. I said "is there nothing your church does not do. Where is this church!" So I told him it was called renewal, and how to get there. He then told me he suffered from chronic depression and he could feel it coming on as he was opening up to me. I asked if he wanted me to pray for him. He did so in the middle of the street, with people walking past (alot faster when the walked passed a guy praying) I started praying for him. After the prayer, he told me it was the best prayer he had ever had over him and he felt so much more lighter as a result. Now there is more to the story, like I gave him a lift to where he slept! Now I would not recommend this in most circumstances but because the Holy Spirit was over me, I asked. It was only when it was out that I started panicking! I was driving thinking "please don't get out a knife, don't take out a knife!" But nothing happened and we got to where he slept and he turned round and said "thank you so much for giving me your time. You are the nicest person I have ever met. God bless you." He hugged me and kissed my cheek and left. I was rejoicing that I had touched someone that could not pay back what I had give him with and was very emotional.
Now I could have quite easily not done any of this because I was tired and wanted to get home. I could have left work on time. I could have labelled him tramp, addict, smelly person, dangerous etc that would have stopped me blessing him. So I encourage you, look past all the labels you give people and see them for who the are, human with a little more baggage than you. Don't let your own prejudice stop you from blessing someone today or any other day. To all Christian friends, don't just preach the gospel, live it! And when you do, amazing things will happen. In the grand scheme of things, I only spent £10.50 of my money and 2 hours of my time so it was not really that much compared to how much that blessed him. You don't even have to do all that. The only reason I did was because I felt compassion for him that came from God. You only have to say a word of encouragement that can lift someones day. Just do something.
Thanks for reading. May the Lord bless you, encourage you and inspire you to look past your own world to bless someone. God bless you!