A Thousand Reasons

Over the past two years, we have been ministering to a group of homeless individuals living in tents in the woods in a neighboring town. Recently, God has given us a mission to share the Gospel on Sundays with the people who live out there.

On this Sunday, it had rained all night and into the morning. We were planning to do what is now our regular church service at around noon. Our regular service is usually a Scripture selection, a short message and then we prepare a meal for about 15-20 homeless men and women who we are pleased to call friends.

But as I said, it was raining - pretty hard actually. I could given many reasons for not going - first, it was raining and perhaps no one would want to come out of their tent (there is a community tent for everyone to use). Another reason was that the path leading back to the camp would be muddy and our car wouldn't make it (a prayer request is a donation of a truck). Still another reason would be that because of the rain, we wouldn't be able to cook. Perhaps the biggest excuse would be that it was just too inconvenient.

But then I thought of Jesus, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Take this cup from me." Perhaps Jesus could have given a thousand reasons for not going to the cross. Given our sins, He perhaps had millions (billions, trillions?) of reasons. But He had one major reason for doing it - it was God's will and His love for us.

Delivering God's message of salvation to a group of homeless is a pretty easy task after all.