“If mercy falls upon the broken and the poor, Dear Father, I will see you, there on distant shores.”

“Preach the gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

I’ve spent the last decade of my life listening to ska-punk-rock band called Five Iron Frenzy. It never gets old; all of their songs are about something ridiculous and random (“You say tomato, I say video game”), social awareness issues like corporate monopolies, abuse of Native Americans, homelessness, etc. (“corporate Darwinism crushes everything below”),or their faith in Christ (“here’s my heart, let it be forever Yours, only You can make every new day seem so new”). 

Today I was listening to On Distant Shores from their last album, The End is Near. The first quote above is the chorus, and it’s been playing in my head over and over and over and over all day. Towards the end of the day, I started to actually think about what it means, rather than it just being a catchy line. 

The first time I ever saw FIF in concert (June 1999), I very very clearly remember Reese Roper saying the second quote above. It means for your actions to reflect the love and grace of Christ to witness to others instead of using words. I pretty much suck at doing that.

So, I’m pulling off the interstate today, and there was a scraggly guy and his doggy sitting at the bottom of the exit ramp, and he was holding the classic cardboard sign that said “traveling and hungry.” Thinking about “the broken and the poor,” I thought I’d spend a couple bucks and grab him a meal from McDonald’s. I don’t say that to pat myself on the back, and in fact, if what happened next didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be saying it at all.

After dropping off the burger, fries, and coke, I went to the BP parking lot a block down to turn around. It took a solid 4 or 5 minutes to get turned around and pass back by the ramp, and instead of seeing him happily enjoying his Big Mac, he had the bag and drink hidden behind him, so that the cars pulling off the interstate couldn’t see that he had food. In spite of myself, I drove back by about 30 minutes later, and it was still untouched, and had about 3 other fast food meals sitting around it now, also untouched.

I was so mad you guys. You always hear about people using ploys like that for drug money or something, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wanted pull my car back up and ask him why he would take advantage of people just trying to help. I wanted to yell at him and tell him he should be ashamed of himself!

Fast forward to tonight at church. My husband is youth pastor at our church, and does an amazing job. Guess what he talked about tonight? Guess what scripture he referenced?

“Preach the gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

I guess the point is, this “homeless, traveling, hungry” guy on the street who took advantage of my food gift got a small glimpse of Christ today in what I did, and I got to show him that. Yeah, I’m still a little bitter, but who knows what kind of glimmer of hope or seed of change that could have put in him? I’m pretty sure I’ll never know, but it still makes me feel happy knowing that if Christ was driving my PT Cruiser off of 459’s Exit 6 this evening, he would have given him a Big Mac meal too. 

Personally, I learned a good lesson today. I hope it’s one I can remember. Thought I’d share my prolific moment with you guys too! 

And if you got a few spare minutes, I’d also encourage you to download some Five Iron! I love all of their songs and could never choose a favorite, but Amalgamate, Every New Day, Get Your Riot Gear, and Wizard Needs Food, Badly are ones I always click to on my iPod.

I’m obsessed with their products (sad I can’t afford), and the co-creators are so fun and spunky, that I can’t get enough of those gals either! They don’t update every single day, but it’s definitely a daily-read for me. And I follow ‘em on Twitter too.