I have this old pair of tennis shoes that I?ve worn since my sophomore year of high school (at least five years ago, maybe six). They aren?t in terrible shape, but they?re to the point where the rubber bottom of the shoe is really loose and you can pick up a quarter without bending over. It?s funny until you have to wear them every day and they keep getting stuck on things...

As with all of life?s problems, I chose to fix it with a roll of duct tape. For some reason I had some leftover white tape from a set we were doing at church, so I ripped off a good piece and ? voila! ? good as new. I was wearing these shoes when he walked up to me.

The man had long white hair under his crooked baseball cap, and he stuck his hand out from under a beat up biker jacket. His jeans were torn in several places. He looked like he was in his mid-fifties, but he might have been younger. This fella didn?t know me from anybody else in the crowd of homeless folks we were about to serve. In his hand he held out a brochure that told me where I could get food if I was hungry. He also let me know that he was handing out clothes from the back of his truck if I needed a new pair of shoes.

My shoes were so ratty that even a homeless man thought he could give me better ones.

I?ve laughed about that story a bunch and told it several times, but the more I think about it, the more it convicts me. In my mind I was this well-taken-care-of kid from a nice, white, middle-class family that could have had new shoes if I dialed ten numbers. The fact that I didn?t have a good pair was because of my apathy, not because of my poverty. In my mind it was absurd for this homeless man to give me anything because I already thought I had everything. We were on different levels. He was poor and I was rich. I came there to give to him, and it was ridiculous for him to think he should take care of me.

But this is the second homeless man to give me something. Christ spent His life on healing and teaching and saving others. A conversation from the life of Jesus as told by Luke cues us in that Jesus had no place to lay His head. He was poor, humble and homeless. And He gave me His life. He gave me life. He became nothing and gave me everything.

So much of my life is ratty and worn out (just ask anyone that knows me). And so often I try to duct tape it back together and pretend like I have everything under control. I act like I don?t need any help getting things fixed or repairing my ugly heart. But then this Homeless Man comes and offers me a new life, a new start, a new peace. And I can grin and turn Him down like I usually do, or I can grab that white-haired, dirty man in the biker jacket and hug the daylights out of Him. I know this homeless man doesn?t need me; but oh, how I need Him.