A Great Day

Thursday 2/6/20 6:17 AM

I decided to go on a little longer walk this morning. When I left the house around 4:30 I purposely left my memory verses and headphones at home, and I asked God to join me on my walk. About a half mile into my walk Psalm 139:5 came to mind where it says that God hems me in, behind and before. The image I had was of God walking ahead of me and behind me and it brought me comfort and a great sense of security despite the early hour, and the darkness. I continued to walk in silence listening for God’s voice but hearing nothing. When I neared the police station my nose was running so I went inside to blow my nose. On my way to the restroom there was a homeless man sitting on the floor who looked up at me. He appeared to be a young white man, disheveled, dirty, and with eyes glazed over like someone who was either drunk or impaired by drugs. I greeted him with a good morning and he responded with an unintelligible grunt. I continued on my walk and when I got to the corner of Norwalk Boulevard and Imperial Highway, where I normally turn right, there was a young man crossing Norwalk Blvd. I turned the corner first and he was about five steps behind me. I immediately thought of God going behind me and offered a prayer of thanksgiving that he decided to join me in my walk. I normally turn south after only one block, but because I had decided to walk a little longer I continued down Imperial Highway. The young man continued behind me, matching me step for step. Just past the library the light turned red and I stopped. The young man caught up and as we waited for the light to change we started up a conversation. He spoke with a Latino accent and he told me he is a truck driver. He was walking to work and we walked together for about a mile, continuing our conversation, until he arrived at his workplace. During the course of our conversation I discovered that he works six days a week, ten to twelve hours a day, he is married, and has two sons ages 7 and 3. We also talked about how hard it is to afford to live in Southern California, especially to buy a house, hence the need for him to work such long hours. As we parted we said our goodbyes and he told me his name was Miguel. I looked further down the sidewalk and there was another man walking toward me about fifty yards away. He also appeared to be on his way to work. As he walked past I noted that he was African American and he said to me, “It is a great day.” I responded with, “It certainly is.” and continued on my walk.

I realized that God had decided to join me join me this morning in the persons of the homeless man, Miguel, and the man who reminded me it was a great day. None of those I met were men of great importance, wealth, or power. They were simply people going about their business, like the multitude of average people I see every day. The Bible reminds me that God makes his home with the fatherless, the widow, and the outcasts of society but I seldom have eyes to see him walking next to me in all the differing forms he takes upon himself. I’m too busy thinking about myself or looking for some great, supernatural experience where I can experience his presence, although those experiences are few and far between.

In his essay Simple Places, Stephen Doughty writes, “Christian community, like beauty, often presents itself in the intimate, the common, the close at hand. It comes to bud and flower in the simplest of places. Race by, and we miss it. Wait to see it in some idealized state and we pass without knowing it was there. … As Jesus’ followers, if we are to find true community with one another and with him, then we should look not just to the massive throng or dramatic moment. We should look as well to the simplest instance of one life brushing up against another. We should open ourselves to the small and intimate moments when persons draw together in their joys and in their needs. If love flows among us, even briefly, God is there – in traffic jams, in places of staggering beauty, in the realms of the darkest communal pain. If we find ourselves bound together even momentarily, God is present. We taste with our spirits the community God longs to build.”

This morning I was privileged to walk with God. When my life brushed up against the lives of the homeless man, Miguel, and the man on the way to work I got a taste of the community God wants us to experience as a society at large. It is a great day indeed.