searching all night

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sutz
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:52 pm
Location: Edmonton, Alberta

searching all night

Post by sutz »

This past Sunday, one of our homeless friends died. He was in his thirties. Thomas was a lovely person, an easy-going man who cared for others. A high risk lifestyle perhaps in combination with a congenital problem meant that his heart stopped in his sleep. Of him and his 2 brothers, all known to us, all aboriginal and on the street, Thomas seemed to have the most potential for overcoming the barriers against him and putting his life together.

We befriend the poor, sometimes remembering that they might be dead by next week. We seek with the Great Shepherd, but sometimes it seems we just don't find them, we can't reach them. Perhaps we are not trying hard enough, perhaps we are not doing it in God's Spirit and strength.

There is a volitional aspect to people that just doesn't seem to apply to sheep. I am not wanting to say that the things stacked against Thomas were of his choosing. But there is this mystifying mix of choices and pressures and brokenness and sin that is at work among those who wander and are scattered. Perhaps Thomas is with the Lord, rescued by the Great Shepherd, when the under-shepherds could not find him. I hope so.
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