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CHAPTER TWENTY
A Nightmare as a Testimony
God works with me in mysterious and strange ways. I remember when I refused a poor, peg-legged man in
downtown Atlanta when I was teaching at Georgia State University. This person asked me for some money to
buy some food, and I refused him. I said in my mind that he only wants to get a drink of whiskey. Then after I
walked away I heard the Word of God speak to me: "When you have done unto the least of these you have
done it also unto me." I literally turned around to try to find the peg-legged man. He was running to catch a
bus, and he was running faster on his peg-leg it seemed, than I could run on my good legs. He got on the bus,
and I was trying to give him something when the bus pulled off. I ran behind the bus for approximately a half
block before I was exhausted. Once in a while still, I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat
running behind a bus with these words resonating and resounding in my soul: "When you have done it unto
the least of these my brethren, you have also done it unto me." God has blessed me with this nightmare as a
testimony. He doesn't have to worry about me anymore. I will never let a poor man go by. If he wants to buy
some whiskey with it, that's his problem. I don't want the poor crying out against me.
Summary
God promises that we will be especially blessed by offering a helping hand and by giving to the poor. God
warns us that if we fail to help the poor, the poor may testify against us before the Lord. The poor are those
who need help to survive at any given time. God has said that the poor will always be with us. Poor people are
not poor because God does not love them or because they lack faith. Because the poor will always be with us,
we have the opportunity to be especially blessed. We can bless the poor and be multiply blessed. God,
speaking to us through the psalmist, promises us that if we bless the poor, we will 1) experience deliverance
in the time of trouble, 2) live long enough to be blessed on earth, 3) be delivered from our enemies, and 4) be
strengthened when we are sick.
We forfeit our blessings by not blessing the poor. Our lack of gratitude has made us insensitive. To
overcome our insensitivity, we must put some gratitude in our attitude by remembering that it is more blessed
to give than to receive. We need to know that when we give to the poor, we give to the person of Jesus. An
extra spark of gratitude will become a part of our attitudes if we simply count our blessings.