The Spirit Within Us  PRO

THE SPIRIT WITHIN US

I was driving one day when I saw a hitchhiker by the side of the road, loaded down with a couple of large carrying bags. Now, I make it a practice normally not to pick up hitchhikers, which may in itself be a refusal to hear the cry of those needy of transportation. But in this particular instance, I was rounding a curve and did not see him until I was almost beside him; and my response of jamming on the brakes and stopping for him was so impulsive and so instantaneous that it surprised even me. As the young man loaded his bags into the back seat and climbed in beside me, it did not take very much conversation for me to discover that he was a Christian. Not only that, he was obviously a man of very evident devotion and faith.

I had noticed as he approached the car, he had a limp, and when I asked, he told me of an injury and operation he had had only a short time before. In fact, he revealed that at the time I stopped, he had given up being able to walk another step and was praying fervently that someone would stop. I eventually went out of my way to take the young man all the way to his destination. After I left, I kept running through my mind just how unlikely the whole incident was. I...