As I write this, I have just come out of a conference call, in which one of the leaders had a minor meltdown. She and a colleague had spent six months working pro bono on a project that was dear to their hearts, and while others had cheered her on and pledged support, when the time came for people to step up, no one – as of that meeting – had actually followed through.
Her frustration and hurt were not misplaced, and reminded me of the ten years I had spent, ministering on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. During that time, I would often hope that churches in other parts of the city would catch the vision and commit to helping out – not so much with money, but with people; treating Skid Row as a mission field, just like exotic locales in Africa and Asia.
It didn’t happen. Over the years, I can count one person from my own church who became a dedicated volunteer at The Lord’s Rain – the showers facility located at the now-demolished Gospel Mission building on Carrall Street.
But what did happen was that a wonderful, motley crew of people stepped up to help. Working alongside me, (The Lord’s Rain was only part of Gospel Mission), were John, Danilo, Gary, Ken, Amelia, Joe, and others, all coming in from different walks of life – some of them from The Street itself! The reality was, these were the people who were supposed to be there according to God’s plan; any plan I might have had, clearly, was not His. So, any frustration over what we didn’t have was overshadowed by gratitude for what we did.
We often spend so much time looking at what we lack, we forget to be grateful for what we have. I believe that being grateful for the motley crew I mentioned was one reason The Lord’s Rain kept going despite worldly odds. Funds to keep the lights on and the water hot would arrive exactly when we needed it, often from unexpected sources. So, would supplies and people to help in crucial situations. Our senior pastor, Barry Babcook, was fond of saying, “God always comes through in the eleventh hour, fifty-ninth minute”. Of course, it would only seem that way to us humans, but it would be Right On Time for God. The “attitude of gratitude”, to use a cliché, was the key.
When Jesus fed several thousand people, starting out with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, the Apostle John later referred to the location where it happened as “the place where the Lord had given thanks.” He treated the incident not as a case where someone waved a magic wand and – SHAZOOM! – enough food materialized to feed everyone with plenty left over for breakfast the next day. No: what stood out to John was the fact that Jesus “took the bread, and gave thanks” for what there was, and what was about to come. Then He started handing out the food.
The moral of the story: magic wands are hard to come by, but anyone can give thanks.
“Count your blessings” may seem like a brush-off, a way of dismissing someone else’s misfortune, but taken seriously, this is something worth considering – and something I need to remember, myself. When a sense of lack starts to overtake you, take a moment and consider what you do have, thank God for it, and leave the rest to Him. What follows, I can almost guarantee, will be something greater than anyone could ever ask or think.
Drew Snider is a former pastor at Gospel Mission on Vancouver's Downtown East Side, and has been a guest speaker at churches in BC. He writes about the people and events in his e-book, ‘God At Work: A Testimony of Prophecy, Provision and People Amid Poverty’. (available at online bookstores).
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spieitually Speaking, HERE
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on Saturday, Sept 5th 2020
Thanks for photo by Kiy Turk on Unsplash
