I was alone in my car and just taking a turn onto the motorway when I noticed a man needing a lift. He seemed quite desperate, so I stopped and let him in. The area he was headed for was a long way past my destination, but I offered to take him as far as I was going in that direction.
He soon started talking in a garbled manner. I could barely make out what he was saying, but he was clearly expressing his anger. I started feeling very uncomfortable, and I explained again that I would be dropping him off, not at the next offramp, but the one after that. At that point he pulled something out of his pocket that, though I never looked, I presumed to be a knife. He told me that he wasn't getting off there, and that I was to go exactly where he told me.
At the time, I had been very aware of God's loving presence in all aspects of my life, and immediately I began to pray, "Our Father . . ." (Matt. 6:9). Well that's as far as I got with the Lord's Prayer. I was immediately filled with the understanding that God was our Father. The Father of all people. And that meant that this man next to me was the loved child of God. And what's more, in reality, he was my very own brother.
