The day God gave Jeff a ride

When God uses you as an instrument to touch, share, and change lives.

When you least expect it, God will hail a cab for you. - Photo by Lexi Anderson on Unsplash

It was a sweltering July afternoon in Lawrence, Kansas. The heat was oppressive, the kind that drains your energy. At 6:05 PM, Jeff was reaching his breaking point; he had been walking for hours, trying to find his way back to the homeless shelter. His knees, worn down by time and hardship, reminded him with every step that he couldn't go on much longer. He had lost count of how many times he had tried to retrace his steps without success.

At that same time, I was finishing up dinner with my friends at a Mexican restaurant. I didn't know it yet, but while I was paying the bill, God was synchronizing my clock with Jeff's. At 6:06 PM, I walked out to the parking lot.

Just as I got into the car, I heard a gentle tap on the window. Looking up, I saw a man in his fifties, bald and wearing glasses. I got out of the car and asked him how I could help. He pointed to the man standing next to him.

"This gentleman needs the address of the local shelter," he told me. "I tried to look it up on my phone, but it doesn't seem to be working. Could you please get it for him?"

I looked up the address, gave it to them, and they both thanked me politely. I got back in the car, started the engine, and began to back up. It was in that split second that I felt an electric jolt, an irrational urge that didn't come from my mind, but from somewhere deeper.

"Come with me! I'll take you there." I said to the gentleman who needed to get to the homeless shelter.

He looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. After a moment of hesitation, he got into the passenger seat. Throughout the journey, he kept thanking me. I remember saying something that felt very genuine at the time: "It's no problem. We're all brothers and sisters on this earth, and we're here to help each other." My passenger, with touching kindness, complimented my car and told me he was in the process of buying a similar model. He also mentioned that he wasn't from the city and had only been there for a few days.

Upon arriving at the shelter, I saw several people camping on the sidewalk, waiting for the doors to open. The man instructed me to keep driving toward the main entrance. I knew, from what I had read on my phone minutes earlier, that this entrance was closed, but I didn't say anything. I stopped in front of the door, we shook hands, and finally exchanged names.

"Alex," I said. "Jeff," he replied.

I watched him walk towards the entrance with his head held high. He knew he would find the door locked, but that wasn't what mattered at that moment. What mattered was that Jeff had arrived there with his dignity intact, not like someone begging for a place, but like a passenger arriving at his destination in a taxi.

However, the spell was broken as soon as I drove away. On the way home, my legs started trembling violently. Logic and fear had returned with a vengeance. "What on earth were you doing, letting a stranger into your car?" I asked myself. I felt as if I had just woken up from a deep sleep.

Upon arriving, I told the story to Diego, my eldest son, and one of the wisest people I know. I described to him how my legs were trembling, as if my body were processing a risk that my soul hadn't registered while I was acting.

Diego looked at me, smiled calmly, and said, "It seems God used your car today to give Jeff a ride."☼

__________________________________________________________________

Alex Guerrero is a content creator who lives in Lawrence, KS. He’s very vocal in his displeasure over pineapple pizza. Chocolate, on the other hand, makes everything better!