Entertaining Angels Unaware

We were replacing a poster on the church noticeboard when a voice enquired about the location of the nearest cafe. Sadly our village doesn't have a nice little coffee shop. At this point we had a choice. We could simply say we don't have one in the village and point our enquirer towards the town or we could offer him hospitality ourselves. Without having to ask Ally, who was helping me with the poster, we both knew this was an opportunity to offer to put the kettle on and make some tea.

Our new friend it turned out, was walking from Essex to Snowdon to raise money for Help the Heroes. We sat and chatted for an hour at least about his journey and his life. We looked up campsites nearby that were on his route to his next major stop and gave directions to the nearest supermarket. As he left we offered to pray for him and he accepted our offer.

It's in these moments that I think about the story Jesus told about the king who blessed those who had fed him when he was hungry, given him something to drink when thirsty, visited him in prison etc. "When did we do this?" they asked, "When you did it for the least of these," was the answer. Was this such an occasion? Who knows, it just seemed to be the right thing to do.

What I do know is that we were in the right place at the right time to extend a blessing to someone who matters to God and who hopefully may be another step closer to the kingdom as a result.