How long has it been since someone hugged you?

I  sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just  off the corner of the town-square. The food and the company were both  especially good that day.

As  we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There,  walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly  goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, 'I will  work for food.' My heart sank...

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others  around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture  of sadness and disbelief.

We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind. We  finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to do and  quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square,  looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful,  knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through  town and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store and got  back in my car.

Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: 'Don't go back to  the office until you've at least driven once more around the  square.'

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the  square's third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the  store front church, going through his sack.

I  stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting  to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign  from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the  town's newest visitor.

'Looking  for the pastor?' I  asked.

'Not really,' he  replied, 'just  resting.'

'Have you  eaten today?'

'Oh,  I ate something early this morning.'

'Would  you like to have lunch with  me?'

'Do you have some  work I could do for you?'

'No work,' I replied 'I commute here to work from the city, but I would  like to take you to lunch.'

'Sure,' he replied with a smile.

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions. Where  you headed?'

'St. Louis '

'Where you from?'

'Oh, all over; mostly Florida ..'

'How long you been walking?'

'Fourteen years,' came the reply.

I  knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the  same restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly  beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an  eloquence and articulation that was startling He removed his jacket to  reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, 'Jesus is The Never Ending  Story.

Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in  life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences..  Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had  stopped on the beach in Daytona... He tried to hire on with some men who  were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert, he  thought.

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival  services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his  life over to God.

'Nothing's been  the same since,' he said, 'I felt the Lord telling me to keep walking,  and so I did, some 14 years now.'

'Ever  think of stopping?' I  asked.

'Oh, once in a  while, when it seems to get the best of me But God has given me this  calling. I give out Bibles That's what's in my sack. I work to buy food  and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit  leads.'

I sat amazed.  My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and lived this  way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked:  'What's it like?'

'What?'

'To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show  your sign?'

'Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments.  Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that  certainly didn't make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to  realize that God was using me to touch lives and change people's  concepts of other folks like me.'

My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his  things. Just outside the door, he paused He turned to me and said, 'Come  Ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you.  For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me  drink, a stranger and you took me  in.'

I felt as if we were on holy  ground. 'Could you use another Bible?' I  asked.

He said he  preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too heavy.  It was also his personal favorite.. 'I've read through it 14 times,' he  said.

'I'm not sure we've got one  of those, but let's stop by our church and see' I was able to find my  new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very  grateful.

'Where are  you headed from here?' I  asked.

'Well, I found  this little map on the back of this amusement park  coupon.'

'Are  you hoping to hire on there for a while?'

'No,  I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right  there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going  next.'

He smiled, and the warmth  of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to  the town-square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it  started raining. We parked and unloaded his  things.

'Would you sign  my autograph book?' he asked... 'I like to keep messages from folks I  meet.'

I wrote in his  little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I  encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of scripture  from Jeremiah, 'I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord,  'plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future  and a hope.'

'Thanks, man,' he said. 'I know we just met and we're really just  strangers, but I love  you.'

'I know,' I said,  'I love you, too.' 'The Lord is  good!'

'Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?' I  asked.

A long time,'  he replied.

And so on  the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I  embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed.. He put his  things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, 'See you in the  New Jerusalem .'

'I'll  be there!' was my  reply.

He began his  journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll  and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, 'When you see something  that makes you think of me, will you pray for  me?'

'You bet,' I  shouted back, 'God  bless.'

'God bless.'  And that was the last I saw of  him.

Late that evening as I left  my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon  the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached  for the emergency brake, I saw them... a pair of well-worn brown work  gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and  thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that  night without them.

Then I  remembered his words: 'If you see something that makes you think of me,  will you pray for me?'

Today his gloves lie  on my desk in my office.. They help me to see the world and its people  in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique  friend and to pray for his ministry. 'See you in the New Jerusalem,' he  said. Yes, Daniel, I know I will...