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Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Least of These

Today we had homeless outreach after church. I'm never excited to go because it makes Sunday such a long day, but I'm always happy I go when I get down to the parking lot where all the homeless wait in line for lunch. They brighten my day every week. 


It's been especially cool to see the expectation level in our group rise. We've seen some awesome miracles and each week we go down to the parking lot expecting God to show up in a bigger way today than He did last week. We're constantly seeking out the "greater things" that Jesus tells us we will do. 


Last week and this week there has been a rise in demonic activity, but there has also been a rise in the Presence of God. Last week and this week we had people get out of wheelchairs, stop needing their canes because their arthritis they've had for 10+ years has stopped bothering them, ears open up, sinus pressure and pain gone, degenerative disc disease completely leaving and crutches no longer being necessary, and so much more. We've gotten to hug on people, tell them how much God loves them, and speak life over them. 


One of our dreams for the homeless is that they'd start to realize their dreams and start to pursue them. 2-3 weeks ago we had such a change in the atmosphere downtown. One man told us that he hadn't been singing in awhile, and wanted to start up again. And this man was an incredible singer....similar to, but better than Kirk Franklin. He was unbelievable. He just stood in the parking lot among hundreds of others and just sang. Then we had a guy come up to us randomly and tell us that he loves poetry and that he used to go to open mic nights at coffee houses around Atlanta just to do "freestyle" poetry. You could give him any two words and he would fabricate this beautiful poem around them. We gave him "fearless love" and you would have thought he spent his whole life creating a poem around those two words. He had a lot of religious symbolism as well as stuff from his heart. The funny thing is that he didn't think before he started the poem or write anything down. It all just came spilling out of his heart. Thirdly we had a guy who sketches come show us all the art pieces he'd been doing over the last few weeks. Because he's homeless he only had an old notebook and some scrap paper, but I would have paid him to do a portrait for me. He would use pens or pencils and within an hour would do someone's entire body (the best was TI), shading and everything. I hope to post some pictures of his art soon. The talent among the homeless is unreal.


So we've been really encouraged in our time with the homeless recently. We've seen people get healed and we've seen creativity and dreams get stirred up. We have such a heart to see their passion for life restored. Only when they believe that they can go after their dreams and that they are worth them will they get up and go run after them. And if we do anything down there I hope that we communicate that they have those dreams for a reason. And that God put them inside of their hearts and has given them the capacity to see those dreams fulfilled. And I can't wait to see the dreams flow more freely and the passion and level of expectancy to rise up in them. It's going to be awesome. 

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