What A Mess

The other day I was going into my office and I wasn't dreading it because my office is Starbucks.  As I was getting out of the car a man who asked me to buy him a cup of coffee approached me.  It seemed like he had been out there trying for a while before he met me.  When I said yes it caught him off guard.  He asked me if I was kidding.  He said, "you know coffee is like $4 in there!"  I told him I didn't care and that he needed to get out of the cold.  When I was in line I could tell people were looking at us strange because they saw him outside asking for assistance earlier in the day.  After we got our coffee we sat down and talked for a while.  Mark told me about some of the difficulties he had been through in his life.  He had some questions about God that we went through and then we got down to business.  Mark was in need of some clothes so we went down to the Rock where I knew they were having "food and clothing" hours.  We went there and had a good talk on the way there and back.  In our conversations Mark kept asking me for $2.  I told him I was not going to give him any money but would buy him either food or give him a ride anywhere.  I stuck to that even though it was hard.  I could tell he was surprised that I had spent 2 hours with him out of my day.  I invited Mark to church and Friday night dinner.  After my encounter with Mark I remembered how Jesus has come into my life before I got things straightened out.  Jesus came in the messiest and nastiest parts of my life in order to restore it.  Because Jesus came into my mess he is calling me to go into the messiest parts of people's lives.