Blessings in KFC

As the January 2015 World Race squads were getting out of session tonight Bill Swan challenged us to ATL. I was only half listening at that point because my brain was exhausted from about 6 hours of sitting in sessions and all I heard was “dinner blahblahblah ATL”. I assumed he was talking about the airport.

As I met up for dinner with my O squad friends: Brandon, Lindsey, and Kelly I was informed that ATL actually meant Ask The Lord. Oops. We were supposed to ask God if he had someone for us to encounter or serve during dinner.

We went to KFC and proceeded to grab some dinner and chat about randomness. Then towards the end of dinner a man slid inside the restaurant and into the seat closest to the door.  I think we all noticed him, but none of us said anything.

Lindsey turned to us and said, “so what are we going to do about this ATL thing?”

God didn’t even wait for us to ask.

At that very moment the man walked over to us and told us that he didn’t have enough money to buy food for his family. Immediately we offered to buy him some food, though i’ll admit I was feeling quite cynical and didn’t think he would want the food and would want money instead. 

What followed was such a blessing. We got to know Robert.

Robert is a man who loves Jesus. Through tears and toothless smiles he told us about his family. He told us about his 8 year-old and 9 year-old grandchildren who live in a home where there are drugs and drinking and always people coming and going. He told us that there isn’t always food for them. He shared that he was just trying to stay on the right path and ask for help instead of going down a road that he shouldn’t. He told us about the temptation to steal to support his family and how he didn’t want to do that. 

He told us that earlier today he had been at a store and watched someone drop a wallet on the ground that had $200 in it and he coudn’t keep it because he knew that God would take care of him. He kept telling us what a blessing we were after we got to pray with him that God would provide a job for him.

Let me tell you that Robert is the blessing. It was so cool to see someone with so little so sure that God would provide in his want. May I have the faith and courage that Robert has this next year. I want to have that complete trust that my father is a good good father.