The bottle was bobbing around in the sea. If you looked hard enough you could see that there was a message locked up inside it. The point was to see how far the message could be carried by the currents of the sea.
Yet, as I thought about where it might end up, I wondered about the different ways we use to spread the gospel. There are a lot of different ways used, all with different degrees of passion and success. I think, there are times when we use a method something like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. It’s an unconfrontational way of trying to tell others about Jesus. How you ask? How about just floating along in life. The thing is, if you go to work, keep your head down and do your job to the best of your ability without creating any dramas your life will be a message locked up in a bottle and it will be hard for anyone to read it. I’m not saying that someone may get the message, they might. It could be a life lived without a passion for spreading His word. Yes, I’m generalising here, I know. You could argue that God will do the work and this is true to a point. However, God could argue right back that by coasting along, you are relinquishing your privilege to work for Him.
I once watched a church rally around a very much loved family as they suffered unbelievable grief. People dropped what they were doing and put in hours of extra work to do all that they could. There were no arguments, new ideas, and plenty of hard work. There was plenty of issues that required thinking outside the usual traditions. I was impressed but also depressed by what I saw. I could not help but think that if we as a Christian community loved Jesus as much as this church loved this family there would be no stopping how far the message of God’s love could be broadcasted.
I’m sure that everyone who reads this is trying to spread the gospel but are you bobbing along or are you swimming in the sea with a passion?
"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14