An unusual circumstance happened late in the evening the other night. I was coming home from Louisiana and it was past midnight when I had to stop for gas on the other side of town.
As I was filling up with gas I was sitting in my car with my door open. Being ADHD I was playing solitaire on my phone so my busy mind would not become bored. An elderly white man with a white paper sack walked up to my door and asked me to drive him to another part of town. Then he said the most unusual thing, “I am a man of God.”
I looked around at the gas station pumps and noticed plenty of other people he could have asked that were more appropriate than a single woman. The lot was littered with young black people.
My first thought was, “No man of God would ask the only single woman in the whole place to give him a ride unless he had something ungodly on his mind.”
I looked up at him and said,”I just can’t do that.”
He looked at the cell phone in my hand and decided to walk away. I was angry that he had asked me when there were others available who were more suitable to ask. More than that I was furious that he characterized himself as a man of God. God would know better than to do that.
Over the weekend I lost a dear friend. He was the husband of a patient of mine.
He didn’t talk much about God but boy did he live God. Every time I called to make an appointment to see his wife he would thank me for calling. Every time I went to visit he was so kind and considerate. He didn’t preach one bit to me but he was more like Christ than most preachers.
I found out his best friend was a pastor, I wouldn’t have guessed it, because I figured his best friend was Jesus.
He wasn’t wealthy or successful according to worldly standards but I would bet money that his heavenly mansion dwarfs most that are wealthy and successful. His greatest character trait was that he was humble. To be in the presence of him made you feel ten feet tall, without stilts.
There are very few people that I have admired in my lifetime. He is one of and I know that he would have never asked me for a ride. He would have walked ten miles instead, to make sure not to inconvenience me.
That, my friend, is what a man of God truly is.
