Journal Entry 6/22/2016

June 22, 2016

In the middle of the scorching AZ summer heat, there lay a man sleeping on the sidewalk beside a circle K at a busy intersection in North Phoenix. I saw him from my car as I was waiting for the light to change, so I did what any normal person would do, and I darted three lanes over to access the turning lane. I quickly flipped a U turn and zipped into the parking lot. I stared at the young man for a minute to see if he was breathing or not, because the temps were around 116 at this point and there had been several deaths in the few days prior to this, because of excessive heat, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I asked God to help me and I jumped out of my car and headed over to the man’s body.
I woke him up and tried not to startle him too bad, because all I knew about him was he was homeless and he had a lighter near him with a grocery bag.
He had a little blood on his chest but he said he was fine.
I asked if I could get him anything, besides the cold drinks and money I just gave him. He asked if I had a cigarette, and said, I am sure you probably don’t have one. I laughed and went to my car and pulled out a pack of Marlboro lights that I had bought on a recent trip to the casino. I didn’t really smoke cigs anymore, but I always liked to be prepared for any emergency moments.
He asked me what church I was with, and I told him that I wasn’t with a church, but I had come to help him with asking God for what he needed.
I prayed for him to have the doors open for help with work and a place to live. Then we talked for about fifteen or twenty mins about his childhood and family.
He had a rough start for sure, and he believed all the bad things people said about him, and he thought he was never going to be able to do anything because of those negative beliefs wounding his soul.
Soon a man in a pick up truck pulled up right in front of where we were sitting on the ground. The guy that I knew him, because the man was waiting for us to finish talking so he could talk to him. As I was leaving, I looked at the guy by the truck and I told the young man on the ground that God had sent the man to help him with what he would need next.
I don’t know why I was so confident about that, but I truly believed that God had answered my prayer that quickly and the 23 year old young man was going to have a new life.
I never saw him again, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw Jesus, and that was not the first time that happened while I was helping a total stranger.