My son has a keen eye when we are driving places. He’s always looking out the window and studying the surroundings passing us by. He’s really good at spotting people in need alongside of the road… and really, really good at convicting his mommy’s heart to not just drive on by.
Jessica S. Hosman
We try to keep snacks in the car and sometimes have bags with additional items made up that can be given to bless someone who might be at an intersection asking for help. But Zechariah has never been satisfied with just rolling down the window and giving a gift. Instead, there is typically a persistent insistence that we park the car and deliver the gift more personally.
One such damp and drizzly February evening we were driving to a ministry event that I was helping to coordinate (and felt the pressure of needing to be on time for, might I add). In our usual rush, I was impatiently tapping my fingers against the steering wheel, watching the clock as the red light dragged on while Zechariah was in the backseat doing his normal perusal of everything around us. With excitement, he pointed out a man with a sign and recognized that we had a bag of goodies in the car we could give. I tried sharing with him the logical excuses of why we didn’t have time to drive out of our way and visit with the man but, as my son persisted, so did the Holy Spirit. My heart was convicted and, before I knew it, I was making the turn to find a place to park.
When we approached the man, we introduced ourselves and learned his name before Zechariah presented the bag of goodies. We chatted for a bit and then offered to pray with him. We ended with “God bless you,” to which he quickly responded, “He just did.” It was on that wet winter evening this precious man shared that he asked God for a pair of clean and dry socks; something so many of us take for granted yet something that is a treasure to someone living outdoors with no access to laundry facilities. Inside the bag which my son had insisted we stop to present, was a pair of new warm socks. Zechariah’s face lit up as he realized God had used him to not only bless the man, but truly be the blessing in this man’s life and answer a simple but desperate prayer for help.
We never know what God wants to do with the simplest of yielding to His Spirit and those little nudges He places on our hearts. Zechariah saw beyond the time crunch of “needing to be on time” for a Christian event. And instead helped me see the importance of “being” the Christian event for the one that God had placed before us. It was a blessing received for the man, a faith-builder for my son, and another important lesson for me which I pray I will never again be too busy to forget.
– Jessica S. Hosman
GRACE FOR TODAY – Life Lessons from a Little One
