Under the Overpass

A few weeks ago I had an awesome God experience, and yet have totally forgotten to blog about it.

I read Under the Overpass recently, which I think I wrote about on here, and am now reading the devotional. It has 6 days of devotions, and on the 7th day is an "action" day, where the author gives 3 suggestions of ways to put your faith into action. The first day there were 3 choices relating to giving to the homeless community or those in need. Well, instead of writing it all out again, I'm just going to paste an email I wrote to a friend that weekend:

"Since you talked at [church] I've been trying to pray each day that God would use me, show me opportunities, and help me to keep my eyes out for people he might want me to talk to. It's actually been kind of frustrating because I feel like I haven't had many opportunities, but even more so because I almost feel scared when I pray that, as if I don't want him to actually give me the opportunities, or make me go out of my way. Which is so stupid! I always get so excited when I have chances to talk to people and talk about God. I guess it's probably Satan messing with me when I pray.

But anyway....I am excited today because I've been able to reconnect with [someone] online. I barely know him, but about a month ago he sent our whole family an email "coming out" about his atheism and not being a Christian anymore. In the past couple of days we've been able to get into email conversations about it, and it's been really easy and good and I think the conversation will be going for a while. I know other people in my family are talking to him, too, so I just pray that God will use us!

Then today, I've been reading this devotional that goes with the book Under the Overpass, that is basically intended to challenge people to put faith into action. So one of the things the first week he suggests is keeping water and granola bars in your car to give to homeless people who are holding signs for money and stuff like that. (which by the way, I think is a cool idea because then you always have something on hand to give to someone and lead to a conversation). So I bought stuff this morning and prayed that God would give me an opportunity to use them. On the way to my sister's there was a guy holding a sign that he needed work and obviously homeless. So, realizing this was an opportunity, I did a quick u-turn because I passed him at first. So I pulled into a gas station, got a water bottle and granola bar and headed back. But he had moved to the other side of the street, so I couldn't hand him anything. So I did another u-turn, parked illegally at the gas station, and walked back underneath the freeway (under the overpass, oddly enough) to where he was sitting. I introduced myself and handed him the food.

I found out that he has worked construction, so that's the type of work he'd like. I was going to see my brother-in-law, who's a general contractor. So I got his number and am going to see if he has any work this guy can do for him. I also got some info about his situation and then prayed with him. I was in a hurry to come babysit my niece, so I couldn't really get into a long conversation, which was kind of a bummer. But I was stoked to see how God was bringing me chances to share Him more than once today!"