A Call to the Cold Streets: Faith in the Rain

In the hush of a city that never truly sleeps, when the autumn chill bites through threadbare coats and the rain falls like a relentless curtain, there is a sacred summons. It whispers not from the warmth of hearth and home, but from the shadowed areas where the forgotten huddle. To step out on such nights—to carry sleeping bags , warm clothing, tents ,food and a word of hope wrapped in prayer—is to answer the heart of the Gospel. It is to embody the command of the Creator Himself: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:35-36, NIV). In the face of the downpour, we do not merely aid the homeless and the poor; we serve the King disguised in their weary eyes. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Why venture forth when the wind howls and the gutters overflow? Because the love of the Creator is not a fair-weather flame, flickering only under sunlit skies. It is a fire kindled in the storm, as Isaiah proclaimed: “Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:7). The rain that soaks your boots is the same that once flooded the earth in judgment, yet Noah built the ark amid the gathering clouds. So too must we build arks of compassion—tents pitched against the tempest, hands extended to pull the shivering from the curb. James echoes this urgency: “Religion that our Creator accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). In a world polluted by indifference, our purity shines brightest when we wade through the rain to embrace the outcast.

Yet the night will test you, not just with cold fingers and dripping hems, but with the sharper sting of discouragement. Your own heart may falter first, whispering doubts like shadows at dusk: What difference does one night make? The problem is too vast; your efforts too small. Turn back—the warmth calls. Others may join the chorus, their voices laced with concern or critique: It’s foolish to risk your health for strangers. There are no shelters ;Let someone else handle it. These are the tempests within, fiercer than any gale. But heed the apostle’s charge: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Weariness is the enemy’s snare, but perseverance is the plow that breaks the fallow ground. Paul, battered by chains and shipwrecks, declared, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). If he pressed on through literal storms at sea, how much more should we refuse the siren’s song of self-pity on rain-slicked pavement?

Discouragement from without is no less insidious—friends who mean well, skeptics who scoff, or the weary souls we serve who lash out in pain. “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’” (1 Corinthians 15:33), yet even here, grace abounds. Remember Elijah, who fled in despair to the wilderness, only to hear the Creators still small voice amid the earthquake and fire (1 Kings 19:11-12). The rain may roar, the doubters may clamor, but the divine whisper persists: Go. Serve. Love. For in every sodden blanket handed over, every shared umbrella against the sleet, you etch eternity into the now. You become the hands of the Creator , warming the world one freezing night at a time.

So rise, beloved, when the forecast darkens and the door creaks against the wind. Let no inner tremor or outer taunt deter you. The poor wait not in abstract statistics, but in flesh and bone, their stories a symphony of suffering that only your obedience can harmonize with heaven’s song. As the Psalmist prayed, “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4). In the cold and the rain, you are God’s answer. Press on. The dawn will break, and with it, the warmth of a reward that no storm can quench.

Love and Blessings,

Robin Campbell

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