Two Les's

 Yesterday I was walking across the sea of asphalt that makes up the huge parking lot of the  grocery store. I was carrying one small bag of groceries and one rather large headache when I noticed a man approaching. He had taken the perfect angle across the parking lot and would surely intersect my path before I reached my truck. I could see his eyes and I knew he had me as his target. From his appearance I believed he must be homeless. His clothes were dirty and ragged. His shoes looked as if they may have traveled thousands of miles. His hair was long and tied back in a pony tail. His beard was short, perhaps just a few days old but carried with it the dirt of the road. He also had the distinguishing behavior of a drug addict that had been tweaking. When he opened his mouth to speak you could see that chronic drug use had caused advanced tooth decay.

My head was pounding and I did not want to deal with a beggar right now. I don't mind helping out someone when I can, but what ever I gave him would certainly go to buying drugs, I would rather save it for someone who really needed help.This one looked like a seasoned pro, he ignored No Solicitation signs and would bother whomever he pleased. I knew by his path that there would be no avoiding him, so I had already decided that my path of least resistance would be to offer him a dollar and move on.
I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a folded bill to hand him when I noticed that his own hand held something that he was offering to me. With the quickness of a stage magician he replaced the dollar bill that was in my hand with the paper that was in his. Now in my hand was small piece of brown paper, about the size of a business card. The paper looked like it had been torn from a lunch bag. On one side, written in childlike script was the question, "Do you know Him?". On the other side the words "John 3:16".
He said, "My names is Les. I am working on straightening my life out with the help of Jesus. I am just asking for people to pray for me, but you gotta know Him before you can pray to Him."
I stood there looking at his face, unable to reply in any way. Les then handed me my folded dollar bill and said, "You must have dropped this."
"Go ahead and keep it", I replied.
"Nah, you save it for someone who really needs help."
Then he walked away.
This unexpected encounter stayed with me for a little while. I kept seeing his face. I kept thinking about the small brown homemade calling card; until my headache took over and all memory of this encounter faded.
Until today.
This morning during worship service at Trinity Baptist my encounter with Les came back when our pastor, Pastor Les, lead the congregation with a sermon about Les the homeless man. Now Pastor Les Hollan didn't know he was preaching about Les the homeless man, but I did. Today's sermon was about "Sharing the Good News." The Pastor taught that to share scripture one must understand scripture. He suggested that we ask three questions when learning about a verse or verses. The first, "How does this passage help me to know God?", second, "How does this passage help me to know myself?", and finally. "How does this passage help me to know the world I live in?".
You see, yesterday God placed in front of me living Scripture, named Les. I know very little about this man, and doubt that our paths will ever cross again. What I do know is this: in that parking lot it was not I who was Sharing the Good News. I take these questions learned this morning and wonder-
"How did this stranger help me to know God?"
"How did this stranger help me to see myself?"
"How did this stranger help me to recognize the world I want to live in?
God Bless you Les.
God Bless you Les.
You both have led in the way of Christ.