Shelter News 19
We lost three more men to the “Program” this week at the Phinney Ridge Winter Men’s Shelter. The Program being UGM’s living situation downtown for men who would like longer term help. Help with finances, help with health problems, recovery, and help with understanding their relationship with their Creator. It’s good to see the men give it a try. Many succeed. Many don’t. If you could pause now and just say “Please help these men, God.” He will answer.
We’re coming to the end of our time at the Shelter this month. That, of course, makes a man think about where they are going to stay. I’ve heard it said in the Shelter this week, “I wish this place was open all year long.” But we often need a push to get our lives together. God can use it. We can be very stubborn. We get comfortable. As a great theologian once said, “Comfort is the worst enemy of man.”
I was made uncomfortable when I was 20 years old and I was wide awake one night, all night, because of some pills I was taking. It came into my head that I would read something. But I wasn’t much of a reader back then. All I could find in our rented house in Ballard was a Gideon’s Bible in the drawer of a table that came with the house. I opened to Matthew and got through the birth and genealogy stuff pretty fast. Then came chapter 5. The Sermon on the Mount. Far out stuff. “Blessed are the poor….consider the birds of the air….don’t judge one another.” Great stuff. I loved it. Something inside of me agreed with it and thought that was the way to live. What I didn’t realize was that I was reading the strictest of laws ever written. What it produced in me, a man who did not know about the forgiveness, was frustration and confusion. I ended up divorced which was a pain I needed to go with out for the rest of my life. I hit bottom a few months later and God was there. But that’s a story for later.
It’s nice and quiet at the Shelter this time of year. Come on in and get some rest.
Ben Paul 4-12-2015