Go therefore and pick blackberries

I love blackberries. Any berries, really - salmonberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries.... mmm. In general if it grows on a bush and I can pick it, it's good. Even kinds of berries most people don't really care for (salmonberries) are plenty to motivate me to spend time and collect scratches wandering in berry patches. I go so far as to tell people (mostly tongue in cheek) that I think it's my Christian duty to pick any berries I see - being eaten is really a berry's ultimate purpose, so to not eat one I had an opportunity to is to keep it from real fulfillment!

A couple nights ago, I went for a lone night run on the trails around the Weimar campus where AFCOE is held and ended up sitting on a wooden bridge over a small creek. After sitting a while, I moved my headlamp and noticed that just off to my left was a cluster of ripening blackberries. Just out of reach - or so I thought. When I got balanced just right, with my toes right on the edge, I was able to reach a few. And then noticed a few more, and a few more. Each required a little more stretching, and sometimes reaching through other less fruitful branches. I started getting a few scratches on my arms, and started having to grab branches (yes, spiny branches) to pull berries within reach.

As I was picking berries I thought to myself "It's a good thing my mother isn't here." I was alone on a trail at night, stretching out as far as I could from the edge of an aging, unrailed bridge. There was a definite possibility of falling, and if I did, I would certainly meet the blackberry bush on the way down before landing somewhere on the steep bank dropping off toward the creek. And even if I didn't fall, I was knowingly subjecting myself to a fair degree of scratches and pokes.

Weighing everything in the balance, I decided to keep picking blackberries. You see, I love blackberries. A few scratches didn't even stack up at all against the joy of popping those perfectly-ripe flavor grenades in my waiting mouth.

Then the thought came to me, if I'm willing to go through all this for blackberries, how much more is it worth sacrificing to tell people about Jesus? Quite a bit. (Infinitely more?)

(Before you send my mother to come get me, the stream was less than 6 feet below and really only a tranquil trickle.) But the point remains - I'm willing take risks and put up with a fair degree of discomfort for the sake of blackberries. How much risk am I willing to take and how much discomfort will I put up with to pick people?