Talk about creative living space!

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_348111014.html
CHICAGO (AP) Anyone who thinks it is impossible to find an affordable place on one of the city's priciest streets -- Lake Shore Drive -- should talk to Richard Dorsay. For three or four years that's where the homeless man lived. Actually, he lived under Lake Shore Drive, in a wooden shack built into the beams and girders of the drawbridge that crosses the Chicago River. On Sunday, Dorsay was evicted from his home after another man arrested in suburban Streamwood told police about him. Inside, authorities found a home more elaborate than the usual warrens other homeless people have created in the city's nooks and crannies. Dorsay had tapped into the bridge's electricity to power a television, microwave, space heater and PlayStation video game system. There he could relax and, on occasions, turn on a Chicago Bears game, invite friends over and pop open some beers. "I've never seen this," said Tom Powers, a deputy commissioner for the Chicago Department of Transportation, who was at the bridge Sunday. "Usually, it's somebody trying to get warm at night." The home had it quirks. Whenever Dorsay heard the bells that signal the arms of the bridge would soon rise to let boats through, he held on as the bridge slowly pitched him forward. "The first time it was scary," he said. "After that, it was almost like riding a Ferris wheel." Coming and going was different, too. Whenever he left, he would pop his head out of the hole to look for traffic. Then he would climb out and go about his routine of panhandling or searching for items to sell at junk yards. He also collects a welfare check. Dorsay discovered his new home when he spotted a hole in a girder in the midsection of the lower level of the double-decker bridge and climbed in. He liked what he saw and started moving his belongings, which he had been hauling around with him, inside. Then he started bringing in other things he could fit through the 1-foot-by-3-foot hole. Two other people also moved to the same area of the bridge, and a number of wooden huts with sleeping quarters were built. Dorsay used blankets to camouflage the huts to make them harder to spot from the water below. "You've got to be kind of agile," Dorsay said of his living arrangements. "You can't be an idiot. ... It doesn't take long to figure out what you need to do." Dorsay's luck ran out after last week. The man who told police about him allegedly implicated Dorsay in criminal activity and said he had a gun at his home. Police arrested Dorsay at the bridge on Thursday. He was taken to Streamwood, where he was released without being charged. He was, however, charged in Chicago with criminal trespass to property, a misdemeanor. On Sunday, authorities searched his home. No gun was found. Dorsay's father came by the police station Sunday to take him to his home in Burr Ridge. Several calls to the home went unanswered Monday. The discovery could lead the city to change its weekly security sweeps of the bridge and block holes in the structure, said Powers, the transportation department deputy commissioner. Mayor Richard Daley said Dorsay illustrates the homelessness problem in the city. "They're there for a reason, for shelter," the mayor said of the homeless. "And that's the concern we share."
Okay, so when I first read this story, it simply amazed me; the creativity and skill this man must possess to rig up such an operation! I mean its simply ingenious. But anyways, I hope that by including this story on my blog it won't leave you with a bad taste in your mouth or the image that justifies stereotyping all homeless as free-loaders who really choose to live that way. My only point with this post is to illustrate that each and every one of us as individuals has potential to succeed. I believe that God has created every individual uniquely with skills and strengths to build upon and further His kingdom. Unfortunately too often we neglect those talents and skills or only use them to fufill our own purposes, such as the man in this article. (I mean he escaped paying any taxes for three years and free electricity!) Simply think what things this man could accomplish if he were to use the same skills he accessed to create a home in drawbridge! It saddens me to think of the multitudes of people who squander thier potential for furthering the Kingdom by wasting time and energy pursuing things that will never last. Maybe this is a challenge to you or maybe to myself or maybe Im reading way too much into a simple article about a homeless man, but regardless I encourage you to embrace the talents and abilities that God has equipped you with and use them to bring glory to God.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," saith the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future...