I have a close friend who finally stepped away from her job. She had been close many times. But one last concern pushed her over the edge. From the outside, someone might have observed the event itself as something relatively insignificant. But for my friend, the aggregate of challenges culminated with one last thing.
Have you heard, “It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back”? One piece of straw is light but when compounded with a thousand others, it becomes too much. In Paul’s speech at the temple, the lynch mob listened until Paul said one particular word. Then they called for his death. What was that word, and why did they care? Paul said, “Gentiles.”
When Paul went to the temple, over the objections of countless friends, he knew that the Jewish people were angry because of his proclamation of Christianity to the Gentiles. In his brief testimony, Paul told of a miracle and a vision in which God spoke to him. These claims did not push the crowd over the limit. Then he reminded them of when he joined in their martyrdom of Stephen. No response from the crowd. But when he said that the Lord had sent him to the Gentiles, pandemonium broke loose! How dare Paul suggest that God loved the Gentiles.
Can love really be the last straw? Sometimes. A missionary in another country rescued children from a garbage dump and led them to Jesus. The government imprisoned him. They called the foreign missionary dangerous. Maybe they were right. Love is dangerous. For some people, it is a bridge too far to believe that God “so loved the world.” Nevertheless, he did. The realization of God’s love could be the last straw that pushes you away from Jesus, or the one that brings you to believe in Jesus. It is your choice. What is your decision?
