Thursday, January 5
Righteous Prayers
When I wake up in the morning, I think about our homeless friends. I hope they all got a good night’s rest and coffee with their breakfast. I pray they will be blessed as they walk the streets today. I think about our homeless friends a lot.
In Hebrew, God is called ‘The Heart-knower’. Throughout the Bible, He’s the only Reader of Men’s Minds. So, I was thinking … our thoughts are conversations we have with God, ‘heart-to-hearts’ that no one else knows about. As I speed through another day, I think … so, I pray.
Speeding through the internet, I saw a picture that made me think. It was a picture of a homeless man leaning against a broken down shopping cart in an abandoned alley. The cart was full of plastic bags tied together in odd assortments. The man was overly dressed in clothes way too big for what was likely his meager frame. He wore two stocking caps at the same time, and held a crusty plastic jug close to his chest. I don’t know what he had in that jug.
I’ve seen hundreds of shopping carts in a thousand different shapes being pushed by only a handful of same-looking people. I recognized the kind of man in the picture, but there was something odd about that cart: the wheels were way too fat. I’d never seen such fat wheels on a shopping cart.
I was thinking that the man in the picture looked just like our friend, Eugene. In fact, they could be brothers! Eugene has walked the streets on the North Side for as many years as I can remember. He leans against a shopping cart full of odd plastic bags, too. He’s way overly dressed for his small frame, and he wears two stocking caps. But, that shopping cart?
I clicked a link at the bottom of the picture and up pops Bor’duxe de Zillieh or something. The picture was taken in France of a homeless French guy with a French shopping cart that had fat wheels!
I studied the picture of the homeless guy from France for some time. I prayed about Eugene. I wondered if the two men thought about the same things. I imagined that the French guy must think in French so … Yeah, God hears a French man’s prayers; just like He hears Eugene’s prayers or my prayers or anybody’s prayers. And, just like He knows what I’m thinking, He knows your thoughts as well.
As we walk through this life, our experiences will provoke thought. Some of our thoughts, or prayers, will benefit the world around us, some will only hurt.
As we see things, we will think things. And when we think things, we pray. God hears and answers prayers, regardless of what we think.
As we see the poor and less fortunate trying to survive around us, I hope we all have righteous prayers.
Kelly ¶ 9:00 PM
