Joining Hands

by Dr. T.S. Rendall

In the pioneering days of the Canadian West, a family was making its way by foot to a farmhouse, located several miles outside a prairie town. It was bitterly cold, and to make better time, the father and mother and their boy cut across a field of what that, because of the early snowfall, had not been harvested. For some reason, the boy became separated from his parents. After a fruitless search the parents decided to return to the village to enlist the help of as many of the local people as possible.

Nearly all the adults of the village turned out and began to search the field. After some time when no trace of the boy could be found, one of the searchers suggested that they all join hands and advance across the field, systematically searching the ground. Quickly the people joined hands and marched across the field. After just a few minutes, the call went out, "I've found him!" The boy had been found, but it was too late; he had succumbed to the bitter cold, and his life had been snuffed out.

As the father gazed upon the body of his son, he was overheard to say, "Oh, that we had joined hands sooner!" And when we stand at the judgment seat of Christ to receive the reward for the things done in the body, will not one of our regrets be that we had not joined hands sooner?

But wait. Here we are in the world where all around us men and women are dying without hope and without God. There is still time to save multitudes of these. Then, in Jesus' name let us join hands, let us march forth as an exceeding great army to "rescue the perishing, care for the dying." (Dr. T.S. Rendall, Fire in the Church)