Look What The Wind Blew In

A person never knows what a strong north wind will blow in. With a knock on the door, I soon found out it also was a cold north wind. There stood a man dressed in a friar's smock, cheeks red from the wind.

"Could you spare a meal and a hot cup of tea?" he asked.

"Come in and warm up, did your car break down?" I immediately wondered which side of the fence this guy was on, God's side or satan's. At least his frock was not black, like a satanist, but the traditional brown like a monk's.

He sat at the bar in the kitchen, (I thought that was funny, a monk sitting at a bar. "Did ya hear the one about a monk walking into a bar...."), and we talked of life and of faith. He was walking across the United States, carrying nothing but his Bible. He placed it on the bar, the black leather cover worn, cracked and torn. It looked as if he had sewn it back together, the binding and the covers, all stitched together, somehow holding the pages together.

"This is why I'm walking, to tell people what is in this book, the hope and the joy of Jesus Christ. If by begging for a meal I can share the Good News, then I'll beg for the rest of my days."

I was cooking bacon and eggs when I opened the refrig and saw the steak that I was going to cook that night. I pick it up and fired up the grill, fixed a mixed salad and poured the iced tea. While we sat at the table, between bites he told me of his love for his God. He finished up and headed for kitchen, "I'll clean up, it's the least I can do."

"No, you've paid me in full. Your words of wisdom and the passion you have to tell the Story, you not only paid in full, but you have inspired me also. I need to grow to have a relationship like you have, not a church service in this world would have opened my eyes to that."

With that he headed to the door, "Blessings on this house, may all who come here find Jesus waiting on them," and out the door he went. I ran to the door and was going to ask him to spend the night but as I ran outside, I couldn't find him. I ran to the road and looked up and down, the wind reminding me that I should have grabbed a jacket, but no monk. I looked all around and the only living thing I saw was the neighbor's dog, doing what dog's do, in my front yard.

Then I remembered something from the Good Book, "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in......"