Peanut Butter & Jesus Project
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25: 37-40
Leave it to the Lord to fulfill a long-time little dream of mine in the most unusual way. When I felt led several years ago to start up a Peanut Butter & Jesus Project, combining the feeding of God’s Word with the feeding of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to people who are homeless and others in extreme need, I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Ultimately, I let the idea go and pretty much forgot about it. Fast forward several years. The Lord led me one day to a farm supply store where I happened to meet a young man about to open a new bakery at the precise time I was in need of bread donations for the ministry’s paralyzed dogs who are on a special diet. I told him if he provided enough bread, I would love to use it for homeless people as well as for the dogs. Little did I know where things were headed.
At the precise time I jumped back in full swing to distributing the Gospel tracts and devotionals I had begun writing, and as I found myself having opportunities again to distribute Bibles as I love to do, the bread started coming in so quickly that I could barely keep up with it. I told my manager friend at Home Depot I sure would love to buy a freezer on sale, and he told me that would likely never happen. Several hours later, he contacted me to say that a freezer had just happened to go on sale. Imagine my surprise when I ended up with a huge supply of bread, my heart wide open and excited to write more tracts and devotionals as I distributed the ones I had already written, a hunger to get more Bibles donated, and the memory of my once forgotten little Peanut Butter & Jesus Project dream.
Though I most assuredly could do without stacking one single additional thing on to an already overflowing plate of loving and serving the Lord, how could I possibly resist the opportunity? I plan to go step by step, slice of bread by slice of bread, jar of peanut butter by jar of peanut butter, jelly jar by jelly jar, tract by tract, devotional by devotional, Bible by Bible, homeless person by homeless person, person in extreme need by person in extreme need, as I seek to serve up the life-giving, life-sustaining, life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ to the hungry and hurting, the broken and lost, forgotten and abused, suicidal and addicted, criminals, rejected and abandoned, raped and tormented, and whomever, whenever, God places them in my path. To God be ALL glory.