Last week I walked city streets with some friends of mine.
Under the 4th street bridge and kiddy corner to the capitol building in Olympia.
Past human waste and hypodermic needles.
Past wet mattresses and filthy sleeping bags.
Over bloodstains and around heaps of garbage.
We stopped and prayed. Through a loss for words. Simple. Slow.
I think Jesus would have been under the 4th street bridge.
Laughing and crying with "society's problems" while society just rolls on over from A to B.
Society has work to do. And when it doesn't, it's too tired for bottom-dwellers from under the 4th street bridge.
That night we set up shop in a derelict parking lot on State & Adams,
playing worship songs from a beer-truck that had been converted into a mobile-stage
with the words spray-painted above us, "Jesus Saves."
We fed hungry people, handed out clothes, and prayed prayers.
And in a flash I watched a bunch of squirly youth-group kids become pastors and missionaries.
I want to live every day under the 4th street bridge.
My eyes lifted, looking for hungry people - that's what Jesus saw (jn. 6:5).
My ears open, hearing cries for mercy - that's what Jesus heard (mk. 10:48-49).
Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
- CT Studd
