It was 6 AM Monday morning and the city was just waking up for another busy day. It was an overcast morning with a light drizzle, but with no wind it was good umbrella weather. It would be easier to lie in bed than to get up and go for a walk, so the walk I would take. It is good discipline.
I got up, got dressed and combed my hair. Can't walk with messy hair. It just isn't right. Grabbed a light jacket, my umbrella and made sure I had identification and my keys and headed down seven flights of stairs to the street below. How different to be almost the only one there. As I walked along more and more joined me as some of the shops were coming to life, especially those that serve food.
I was headed to the stairs that would take me to the top of the bridge going across the river. My plan was to climb the stairs walk toward the river and come back down the stairs there. I got to the stairs, climbed up all 110 to the top and realized I had come up on the wrong side of the road as the stairs going down were on the other side and I was not going to try to cross the road in the busy morning traffic. I plan to live longer than this morning.
Back down the stairs to the street, up some stairs to cross the street to a walkway that crosses under the bridge to the stairs that continue up to the top. These stairs come out on the other side of the road. I walk uphill toward the river because at this point the railroad and the street are at the same elevation. At the next set of stairs - all 171 steps - the road is above the railroad as they cross the river on the bridge.
As I walked on the crossover under the bridge, at the beginning of my walk, there were two homeless men sleeping on the sidewalk out of the wetness. I thought of what it would be like if I were lying there and had no hope for anything better. For so many people in the world, life is nothing to write home about. Life is just plain difficult. Think of all the people in the world who spend all day searching for water and enough food to live another day. And most of those days you live in a state of sickness and pain.
"God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him" (James 2:5, NASB). Who do we chose? Who do I chose? What if that were me lying under the bridge? What if it were me as a child that had just lost both parents to AIDS. Am I worth $22 a month to lift out of poverty? I wonder how I will answer God when he asks me.
Well, I am back home and the umbrella is drying in the bathroom and I am sitting here at the keyboard thinking about my walk and about life. Darkness and death due to sin sure is not what God wanted for those he created in his image. But he gave mankind free will and man made a choice as we are doing today.
I got up, got dressed and combed my hair. Can't walk with messy hair. It just isn't right. Grabbed a light jacket, my umbrella and made sure I had identification and my keys and headed down seven flights of stairs to the street below. How different to be almost the only one there. As I walked along more and more joined me as some of the shops were coming to life, especially those that serve food.
I was headed to the stairs that would take me to the top of the bridge going across the river. My plan was to climb the stairs walk toward the river and come back down the stairs there. I got to the stairs, climbed up all 110 to the top and realized I had come up on the wrong side of the road as the stairs going down were on the other side and I was not going to try to cross the road in the busy morning traffic. I plan to live longer than this morning.
Back down the stairs to the street, up some stairs to cross the street to a walkway that crosses under the bridge to the stairs that continue up to the top. These stairs come out on the other side of the road. I walk uphill toward the river because at this point the railroad and the street are at the same elevation. At the next set of stairs - all 171 steps - the road is above the railroad as they cross the river on the bridge.
As I walked on the crossover under the bridge, at the beginning of my walk, there were two homeless men sleeping on the sidewalk out of the wetness. I thought of what it would be like if I were lying there and had no hope for anything better. For so many people in the world, life is nothing to write home about. Life is just plain difficult. Think of all the people in the world who spend all day searching for water and enough food to live another day. And most of those days you live in a state of sickness and pain.
"God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him" (James 2:5, NASB). Who do we chose? Who do I chose? What if that were me lying under the bridge? What if it were me as a child that had just lost both parents to AIDS. Am I worth $22 a month to lift out of poverty? I wonder how I will answer God when he asks me.
Well, I am back home and the umbrella is drying in the bathroom and I am sitting here at the keyboard thinking about my walk and about life. Darkness and death due to sin sure is not what God wanted for those he created in his image. But he gave mankind free will and man made a choice as we are doing today.
