Broken and Hungry People Are Waiting for Us

While carrying the cross, I meet a guy on the street and within minutes we are hugging, praying, and crying together. What happened?

Transcript

Hello my name is Kyle Jenkins and this is the Loving All Peoples Podcast. A podcast about connecting the Church to the Unchurched. 

A few years ago, my team and I were carrying the cross in a low income area in front of a liquor store, and people were all around us talking to us. A guy walks out of a nearby store and sees us and he kind of did a double take. He just seemed like a normal guy, but he didn’t look like he belonged in this area. I knew from the look on his face that he was desperate. He came up to me. His face looked intense and he just didn’t know what to say, but he sure wanted to talk. With the cross on my shoulder, he of course asked me what we were doing and I proceeded to tell him my story. I then asked him about his story and he just began to open up about how he couldn’t believe that he was in the hard place he is now. I encouraged him and he began to tear up. I just wrapped my arms around him and began to pray for him and he literarily just started to weep in my arms. Strangers meeting on the street and within minutes we are hugging, praying, and crying together. I was so touched after I left, that I had to emotionally gather myself. First, because I was just hurting for him and second because I was overwhelmed that God would connect me with someone so hungry which is always my prayer. And third, it broke me to know that there are so many people out there just waiting to be loved on.

I attached a link to the picture of this encounter in the transcript. The picture touches me so much and I just wanted to share it with you to encourage and hopefully inspire you. People always ask me how they can get “involved” or live for God. We all have heard this a million times, but the answer is to love the person in front of you. No really, love the person in front of you! We need to realize and believe that there are broken and hurting people everywhere you go and they are waiting for us to love them and share our hope with them. 

I would say that most people who I have had the privilege to encounter or become involved in their lives, and even people who have changed their life forever because they believed in Christ were often times what felt like chance encounters. Like it was a matter of who was there that day at that exact time. But in God’s mysterious ways that I don’t understand, I believe they were all divine encounters planned by God. 

I actually just got a call from one such person this week. I will share her full story at some point, hopefully soon, but we met when I was carrying the cross in her community, she and her son came to Christ because of it and their lives changed completely and we keep in touch to this day. She is family to us! Her story is amazing. 

After I got off the phone with her, I was just in awe and amazement of the fact that God would use us to have these encounters with people. What feels like a chance meeting, was really God without a doubt connecting two people and lives are changed. How incredibly blessed we are that God would choose to use us. 

It also made me start thinking about if we never went to that community that day, we would have never had the opportunity to meet her. What would become of her and her son? I don’t know and don’t begin to understand, but this I do know, I felt like God wanted me to be there, I went, and amazing things came out of it. This story has repeated itself over and over in my life. 

And this is also what happened in the story that day with the guy I met in the parking lot. Turns out he had become a heroine addict. He sure didn’t look like one. Again he looked like a normal guy. But he was a guy who had let his life get out of control in the worst of ways. When we met that day, he suddenly realized how broken he had become. It was a difficult but beautiful moment. And it happened because God put us together, but I had to choose to be available. Available to see, to love, and to get involved in a life. 

We see encounters with Jesus all throughout the gospels and the book of Acts. Redemption stories. I love redemption stories. I am a redemption story. 

This happens with Jesus over and over again. Traveling from town to town, he encounters people wherever he goes. He is just present and he encounters hungry people and their lives are changed forever. 

This happened to all of the disciples. The Samaritan Woman, The Leper, The Paralyzed Man, The Man with a withered hand, The Centurion, The Woman who washes the feet of Jesus with her tears, all of the demoniacs, Jairus the ruler of the synagogue, The Bleeding Woman who touched Jesus, the woman caught in adultery, the man born blind, Zaccaeus, Mary of Magdala, and even The Dying Thief who encountered Jesus in his last moments dying on the cross. Even then, Jesus was changing lives. When he was raised from the dead and returned to Heaven he is still touching lives. Saul of Tarsus becomes a follower of Jesus. 

Then he begins to work through the very people who had a life-changing encounter with Jesus.  Through his followers, more lives changed. Lydia, The Ethiopian Eunuch, The Philippian Jailer, Cornelius a centurion in the Roman army, Simon the sorcerer, and countless more in the book of Acts. 

And Jesus keeps on doing this to this day. He reaches people every day and He uses us, who at some point have had an encounter with Jesus.

We have a choice to make. We have to go. We have to be available. Anytime, anywhere. What if I didn’t choose to go and love the people who I have encountered? If we don’t go, they won’t feel hope. If we don’t go, they will miss out on love. If we don’t go, they may not have the opportunity to turn their life around. Most importantly, if we don’t go, they will not hear about the hope that we have.

Look all around you. Take a risk and go love someone right in front of you. They are all around us, waiting for us. Waiting for you.

If you have any questions, you can contact us through our website at lovingallpeoples.com. And please remember to follow our podcast to receive upcoming episodes. Thanks for the listen everyone. This is the Loving All Peoples Podcast.