Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Matthew 25:35 – “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…" (NRSV)

Last weekend at Welcome Saturday, a man who’s been coming for quite some time pulled me aside and said he needed to tell me something.  I’m always a little wary when that happens because our guests sometimes take on the responsibility of monitoring one another and this sort of introduction is followed by tattling on someone taking more than their share.  Given what I knew about this guy though, it seemed likely that wasn’t what was about to happen.  But when someone specifically wants to “tell you something,” you have to stop and listen, because it’s going to be more than just a random comment.

And indeed, he started telling me a story that probably began over 30 years ago.  He used to run on the beach, all the way from Ocean Beach to Mission Beach (in other words, really far – on sand!).  But then he injured his back and could barely walk.  And from there, the story went back and forth between moments of overcoming injuries and pain when he could get around again, and set-backs that made him wonder if he would ever be able to run again.

The story ended like this: he had done that beach run again recently.  He probably isn’t going to do it again, but he got through it that once, just to see if he could.  And he wanted us to share in that triumph, because, as he put it, the protein we provide in our monthly breakfasts is part of what made it possible.  I don’t know that I’d ever thought before about how living on the edges of our economy makes a protein-rich diet harder to find, but it makes sense.  Carbs are cheap, but they don’t always provide what people really need.  Protein is scarcer.  The fact that this man connected his victory to the meals we’ve shared with him made my heart warm.  And I thought your heart should be warmed by this tale too.