MESSENGERS TO HELP US

MESSENGERS TO HELP US

Genesis 19:15 "With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished."

As I drove to New Mexico a couple of days ago I came up to the place where Interstate-10 joins Interstate-20. If you are going east on I-10 you either go east to San Antonio on I-10 or northeast on I-20 to Dallas. As I approached the intersection I remembered the first time I came to that point. I was coming home from El Paso on the way back from a pow wow. I was so tired I could hardly stay awake. I was a foolish young man who was determined to get home no matter what. I kept weaving back and forth along the freeway. It was about that time that I noticed a hitchhiker thumbing his way east. I ignored him and went on my way. For for some reason I couldn't keep him off my mind. He was wearing white clothing with a blonde afro. But there was something about his eyes that I could not forget as I drove past him. I finally decided to go back and give him a ride. I had to drive five miles east to find the first exit and then return seven miles to the next exit to return. As I returned to pick him up I noticed he was not standing thumbing for a ride but now was sitting on top of a large rock that had slid off the mountainside.

As I approached him I stopped and asked if he needed a ride. What surprised me was that he said, "No, but I will ride with you for a while." Then he said, "I was waiting for you, I was told you would come back." For the next hour and a half he asked me questions and talked to me and laughed and joked around. Before I knew it, I was wide awake and eager to keep on driving the seven hundred miles home. Just about the time we approached the Y that split into I-10 and I-20 he said, "I need to get off now." When I stopped and opened the door I said, "Are you sure this is the place. There is nothing out here for miles." Then he said, "You'll be all right now. It is time for me to help someone else." I told him, "This is the middle of the summer desert. There is nothing here and you have no water." As he closed the door he said, "I will be just fine." I drove off wondering about this strange person who quickly ran across the freeway and started to thumb his way back west the same direction I picked him up. Years later the only thing that came to mind as I thought about that hot July summer day in the desert was that God the Creator had sent a special messenger to make sure I stayed away and alert. Moses wrote of a time when God the Creator sent an Angel to warn Lot and his family and to lead them out of certain destruction. He wrote, "...the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished." So next time something tells you to go back and help someone, it might be an angel sent to help you.

Robert Soto, Lipan Apache and pastor