The Great Exchange

Let's go back several months to December 2009. Liz and I attended Urbana, a Christian Missions conference in St. Louis, Missouri, with a group of young adults from our church. This was a journal entry from that trip:

"After visiting the St. Louis Arch a group of us began heading back to the convention center where Urbana was being held. Since Liz headed back to the hotel to get the cushion used to protect her still unhealed tailbone and the rest of the group stopped by Starbucks to get coffee, I continued down the cold St. Louis street alone. A few blocks up a man stopped me and asked if I could spare some change. I told him no, but would he be willing to walk with me as I headed to the convention center.



His name was Damon, he had two boys, one in junior high and one in high school who were being raised by his mother, and he had just been released from prison. I asked and he told me that he had taken someone’s life and had to pay the penalty and now he was homeless, wandering the streets, looking for a job or a place to stay. I asked if I could stop and pray for him, and if he would pray for me as well.

As we prayed I sensed God speaking and I told him as we finished, “Damon, the world would have us believe that only one of us is in need, but that’s a lie. The truth is that I need you as much as you need me. You need me to fulfill your hope just as much as I need you to fulfill my purpose.” We kept walking and seeing a liquor store up ahead I agreed to buy him some food for the night. In the store I handed him the money and he asked if he could buy a pack of cigarettes. I told him it was his money and he could do with it whatever he wanted.

As we stepped back out into the cold he asked where I was going. I told him it was a missions conference that would send people out to give their lives away all over the world. He said, “Like to Africa?” I said, “Yeah, like to Africa.” He pondered this for a moment and then responded. “I would give anything to be able to do that.” I realized how privileged I was, that I even had the opportunity to give my life away – who would support an ex-con living on the streets to do missions work? I prayed that someday I would see him out in the fields, working alongside the poor, God fulfilling the desire of his heart to live for others.

As we approached the subway entrance where he planned to take a train across the state border and sleep on a friends couch, I pulled a granola bar out from my backpack and handed it to him. He started to turn away and then looked back with tears streaming down his face. “Thank you.” I embrace him and said, “No, thank you.” As we hugged and he wept we told each other that we loved each other, and we meant it.

As I relayed the story to our Urbana team that evening I told them, “A poor orphan in India has just as much to offer you as you have to offer them. Don’t think that just because you have “stuff” it means you have more to offer." I believe what God is most interested in is an exchange between the lives of His children. God, be with Damon, wherever he is. Would you fulfill your purpose for his life, and grant him forgiveness for his sin, and a second chance to fulfill the desires of his heart."