imagine if I told you you'd have to sleep on the streets tonight...

...and then do the same for the next 39 nights after that? 

I just got off the phone with one of our United Life brothers and board members who is following through with a conviction to live on the streets for forty days. Last night was his first night.

He told me with some laughter in his voice that it was cold. 

Regardless of how you feel about someone choosing to live on the streets, I can tell you that his obedience to this conviction is already bearing fruit. For me personally, although I've always known in my head that the homeless I see on the streets of Seattle are somebody's brothers, mothers, sons, and cousins, the worry that I feel for Brian (who, thankfully, is traveling with a companion) is like nothing I've ever felt for any homeless person before. "What if something happened to him...?" is the thought that echoed louder and louder in my mind as Brian's departure date approached. Before I've never worried about that for the homeless people that I've met. 

We can talk about ending homelessness, we can volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, we can serve at soup kitchens...all of those things I've done much of. But because of one brother's faithfulness in listening to something that God put on his heart, I realize how removed I've kept myself to the plight of those living on the streets. Just this past week a number of people were shot by Seattle police officers. One who died on the spot was a homeless man who was carving a piece of wood and failed to put his knife down in time. Any other week I probably would have shrugged my shoulders and said, "too bad". Now, however, I can taste, at least slightly, what that man's family is feeling. 

Brian and James are going to grow in gargantuan ways over the next few weeks. But I think those of us who love and pray for them will as well. I invite you to join me. You can start by committing to pray for them daily, and you can also keep track of how things are going for them by visiting their blog (which they'll be updating through public computers through Seattle) at http://bjarbjar.blogspot.com/.