Cozy comforters and wet blankets.

Remember how it feels in mid January when you snuggle into bed under a warm comforter. Peace and tranquility are words I'd use to describe my experience.

I'll never forget a trip to the Creation Festival (when it was held at Hershey stadium). We awoke Saturday morning in our rain soaked sleeping bags soggy from a leaky tent. Ugh, would be my descriptor for this moment.

Of these two words pictures above, I would prefer the former more than the latter.

Yesterday, we decided on Gus's pizza and a trip to Rec Park for dinner. Afterward we walked over to Kish Creek to look around. The clear evidence of vandals was painted all over the bridge abutment. As we came around the backside of the abutment, Tracie pointed down to a rock and there were two religious tracts neatly resting there.

Someone expended time and energy into coming to this spot and carefully laying out this piece of paper. They assumed that many if not all who frequent this spot are spiritually lost. Their heart is in the right place but their mind needs an awakening. (I am aware of a few who have come to faith in Christ through tracts.) There is a better (more effective way).

If I were a pagan (unbeliever) and had a choice, I would much rather engage a real person and hear about their love of Christ than to look at a one dimensional piece of paper that essentially tells me I will burn in hell if I don't believe in Jesus. Generations of people are disengaging from God and His church because our ability to evangelize takes shortcuts and convenient avenues for sharing the Good News.

Faithful Christian living (as I understand it) requires us to be warm comforting blankets to folks who are cold, wet, huddling masses of confused women and men. We were them. Now we are new creations.

Faithful Christian witness is nothing more than sharing the love God showers on you with another soul who needs it. It can be frightening to consider having a real conversation with a kid under the bridge at Kish Creek. It might be intimidating to engage in conversation with the multitude of fishermen who come there to angle. As a disciple of Jesus, we are commanded to hang out in those places.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from

God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God

was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has

committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God

were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God

made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As

God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, “In the time of my favor I

heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the

day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2, NIV)

Use the eyes God has given you to look into the faces of people around you. Use the ears God has given you to listen carefully to those who talk. Use the hands that God has blessed you with to help those in need. Allow your life to become a living sacrifice that God can use.