I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
(Revelation 2:2-7 ESV)
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
(James 2:1-7 ESV)
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
(James 2:14-17 ESV)
Revelation 2-3 and James 2 should convict you no matter what denomination or church background you come from. But as my title suggests, I'm aiming my blog post today towards those who hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith, who teach and memorize the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechism, and favor reading reformers and puritans over the theologians of the modern era.
A few years ago, I was ordained as a deacon. It was a very humbling and profound moment in my life. As I took my vows, I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment. I felt a deep sense of responsibility. I felt a deep sense of dread. I was swearing loyalty to the King of Kings, to serve His Church, to serve those He calls me to serve, and to serve them in the same manner in which He served me, following His example. I wasn't excited about the calling. I was terrified.
I remember attending my first deacon meeting. I was out of place. I was young. I was inexperienced. It didn't take long for me to feel inadequate. It didn't take me long to think that my ordination was a mistake. It didn't take long for me to question by qualification to serve the church as a deacon. Maybe my church made a mistake. But...God doesn't make mistakes. So, why was I here?
I was a reformed reader. I used to devour theology books. Shortly after God adopted me as His son, I spent almost every penny I had on theology books. It wasn't a quest for mere head knowledge. I read John Calvin, Augustine, John Owen, and Charles Spurgeon and I read the words of men who knew God. Their knowledge wasn't cerebral, but it was relational. Much like a parent knows their child, much like a husband knows his wife, these men knew Christ. They wrote about their Savior, Father, and Comforter because He revealed Himself to them in His word, they experienced His grace in their lives, and constantly witnessed His grace in the lives of others.
When I started as a deacon, I was still a hopeless romantic when it came to my views of the modern church, especially the Reformed Presbyterian Church. I was in love. I loved being in a church full of people who knew what they believed and why they believed it. I loved being in a church where everyone was able to articulate the gospel, defend their faith, and desired to grow more and more in their faith, their understanding of God's Word, and their Christian duty and reasonable service. The gospel was proclaimed from behind the pulpit Sunday morning and Sunday evening. I was truly in the midst of people that loved our Triune God and knew Him well.
A year and a half after my ordination as a deacon, I started a new job as a data entry clerk at a local Christian shelter and rehab center. Ever since God placed His name on me, I changed my career goals away from corporate America and towards social service. I couldn't stand the pursuit of the almighty dollar. I knew my life held more meaning than sustaining a lavish lifestyle with a thick paycheck, and I wanted to pursue something that was meaningful, changed people's lives, and glorified God. So, I counted money and pushed buttons on a keyboard. It was a start.
Time went on. As time went on, guilt and conviction built up. Deacon meetings came and went, and I felt we were doing a good job. We watched the budget and tried to keep up with church families, making ourselves available for whatever needs arose. We looked for properties for our newly established congregation to move into. We were performing our duties, but something was missing. Although the work I was doing was good and necessary, I couldn't help but feel that we were neglecting something. Something important. I wasn't the only one.
Our deacon board and session met and discussed outreach opportunities in our community. Our community was smaller, close knit, and we had to brainstorm ways in which we could serve and help our community. It was a good discussion. It was a profitable discussion. We determined that we would reach out to the local social services provider and find ways we could get involved. It didn't take them long to let us know that they needed a group of volunteers the following week.
The day of the outreach opportunity came and two people had signed up to help. The number dropped to one when I woke up that morning feeling ill. I remember how guilty I felt calling my good friend and fellow deacon with the sad news that he was on his own. I was devastated and heartbroken. I was upset and frustrated. I spent the day contemplating what the next course action would be.
Sadly, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I didn't want to be a deacon anymore. I didn't want to serve these people anymore. I was frustrated. I spent the work week seeing and experiencing first hand the great need for churches to get involved with relief, rehabilitative, and empowerment organizations that serve the poor, the homeless, and the addicted in my community. I wanted my local congregation to get involved with our community, reaching out to those that society has largely ignored. A huge part of the problem was that my church was a twenty five minute drive away, a different community than the one I lived and worked in, and it didn't make any sense to get them involved with the organization I worked for, although that felt like the thing to do.
I was also frustrated because my session discussed the need for our congregation to get involved with outreach opportunities in our community. When an opportunity came up, no one was available? Not a single member of the session? I admired and looked up to these men. They were my leaders. However, in this great respect, they were not leading. Not a single soul in our congregation was available to serve? This I couldn't stomach. This I couldn't stand.
I went back to work, and I queried our database to find out how many of the local churches (there are about 500) had financially supported the Christian organization I worked for within the last year. We had just recently expanded our emergency winter shelter to house more people during the deadly Colorado winter nights. Surely, this great need in our community was supported by the local congregations that cared for human life. It wasn't 500. It wasn't 300. It wasn't 100. It wasn't even 50. It wasn't even 20. My heart sank.
I was a hopeless romantic (a blue blood) for the reformed faith. I had just discovered a huge flaw in the church, and what's worse, the reformed churches were also at fault. My heart was broken. My eyes were opened. I saw the reformed faith in a new light.
Things were going to be different. I was going to have to make some difficult decisions. I was going to have to resign from the deacon board at the church twenty miles north and return to the mother church I was first installed in two miles north from where I lived and worked. I was going to have to do the hardest thing I've ever done, but I knew I was doing the right thing.
I tell you my story so that you can understand the context of my frustration and my disappointment in the local body of Christ in my community, especially the two reformed churches I have been a member of.
In Revelation 2, Christ tells the congregation in Ephesus that it is not enough to defend the faith from those who would seek to pervert the gospel, the church, and the truth contained in God's Word. The church of Ephesus was faithful to spread week killer to protect the soil in the garden, but they were not planting any seeds. The garden was thick with mature growth, there were no weeds, but there was no new growth. They lost the love they once had for the lost. They were more concerned about making sure that impostors didn't infiltrate their midst that they hardened themselves against those outside of the church.
In James 2, James challenges Christians to consider their concern and love for the poor. The example James provides is representative of a whole rather than speaking about an isolated incident. James is not challenging the church to give poor people the best seats in the house during a Sunday morning worship service. James is challenging the church's concern, love, outreach, and evangelistic approach to the poor. Are you placing poor people and their needs as a prominent part of your church's ministry? Or does your church have no idea how to minister to the poor and spend hardly any resources for improving their ministry to assisting those in need? The answer to these questions rests in your budget, in the work your deacons and elders are devoting themselves to, and the number of times you have participated in an outreach to the poor in your community.
"Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith
and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?
But you have dishonored the poor man." It's a rhetorical question followed by a statement of guilt. God chose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, and if your congregation doesn't invite the poor to participate in God's kingdom by calling them to place their faith in Christ the King, then you have dishonored the poor man. Proverbs (a book of wisdom) explains what it means to dishonor the poor:
Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
but he who is generous to the needy honors him.
(Proverbs 14:31 ESV)
Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker;
he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
(Proverbs 17:5 ESV)
I strongly challenge the two local Reformed Presbyterian churches in my community to consider whether or not they believe God has chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. If they truly believe this, then how is this made evident? How much time do they spend on outreach activities to help the poor? How much of their yearly budget is devoted to an internal ministry to the poor or is ear marked to help an established and effective local nonprofit that ministers to the poor? How many people in their congregation feel comfortable speaking to the poor? How many of the deacons have studied human services and have strong biblical convictions on the necessity to help the poor in a manner that restores their personhood, reconciles them to God by faith in Christ, and welcomes them with open arms to the Kingdom of God?
Shortly after James challenges the church on their love, concern, and outreach to the poor, he continues onto one of the most quoted portions of scripture. Faith without works is dead. What context was this stated? It was in the context of the need to minister to the poor.
What is the reformed faith if there are not reformed works that flow from it? Is it not a dead faith? It can be biblical, it can truthful, it can be grounded in historical theology, it can boldly and profoundly pronounce Christ and Him risen, but if it remains a mere knowledge rather than a lifestyle then it is dead. It is worthless.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Handouts
This could merely be a futile attempt to justify my actions, and if you think so, I'd love to discuss how I could have improved my interactions with a woman at Walmart this afternoon. I recognize many mistakes in my interactions today, but I also recognize that mistakes are made so we can avoid making the same mistakes twice. It is this learning process, precisely, that persuaded me to make the decision I did today. I do not share this story with you to pat myself on the back, to toot my own horn, or to convince you to do what I did. After all, many people who read this story will call me a hypocrite, a bad person, suggest a lot of reading on Christian charity, and feel that I should be ashamed of myself and what I did. Honestly, I have no pride in my heart for what I did. In fact, I have a deep felt remorse and sorrow for what I did. Nevertheless, I believe I did the right thing.
It's Saturday afternoon, and after scrounging for what I could find in the fridge to make some lunch, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and make a trip to the dreaded Walmart for some groceries.
I don't know what comes to mind when you think of Walmart because Walmarts are all over the place...some of them in good neighborhoods and some of them in bad neighborhoods. I wouldn't say the one closest to us in a bad neighborhood, but it's certainly not the best.
I am in the produce section, walking over to grab a bagged salad, and a lady in a scooter cart grabs my attention:
"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Do you see those blueberries up there?"
"Yes, how many would you like?"
"Will you grab one?"
"Certainly."
I grabbed her a small package of blueberries and handed them to her. She took them, and continued on with her shopping. I must admit, it instantly struck me that she seemed upset about the exchange. She looked upset when I handed her the blueberries, she didn't smile, and she didn't show any appreciation. I literally shrugged my shoulders and continued towards the bagged salads. I just added her behavior to a long list of characters that I have met at Walmart over the years. I assumed she was having a bad day.
After grabbing my bagged salad, I heard my wife's voice in my head. It said, "Get the non-perishables before you fill your cart with perishables and food starts spoiling." Actually, the voice just said, "Who taught you to grocery shop?" but I knew what it meant.
I left the grocery section to grab some cosmetics and household goods. I returned to the grocery section about ten minutes later. The lady in the scooter was coming down the main aisle, saw me, looked as if she had been looking for me, and bee-lined it towards me. I made eye contact, expecting her to ask me to grab something off the top shelf again.
"Excuse me, are you a Christian?"
"Yes I am."
"What church do you go to?"
I proceeded to explain that I attend a Reformed Presbyterian church downtown. She explained that she grew up in the Presbyterian church but she was now a Pentecostal. She also proceeded to explain to me that she was a minister of Christ Jesus, called by Him to abandon everything to minister in His name. She was living off of social security and welfare checks, her monthly checks wouldn't arrive until Tuesday because Labor Day was the following Monday, she had no food, and she asked if I would pay for her groceries.
I started to explain that I work at a local homeless shelter, and she interrupted me to explain that she couldn't go there. She didn't have a car or any mode of transportation. A man at the motel she was staying at gave her a ride to Walmart to buy her groceries. She didn't ask him to help her with the groceries because she felt like he didn't have money and she only asks Christians.
However, I wasn't telling her that I work at a homeless shelter so that I could suggest she go there. She didn't look like the part of a homeless individual needing a meal. I was going to explain to her that I work at a homeless shelter, and I am very skeptical of anyone asking for a handout. I told her that I wanted to help her (I wasn't lying), but I had been burned by too many people seeking help before. I didn't tell her this so I could walk on. I explained this to her so that I could tell her that I didn't believe her story and that I wasn't going to pay for her groceries. I still had every intention of trying to help her, however.
She quickly became defensive.
"I'm not lying to you. You can see in my eyes that I am not lying to you. I'm a Christian asking a fellow Christian to help me."
I looked again at the groceries in her basket, I took a deep breath, and I did something very difficult: I said no. I didn't say the word, but I began the process of telling her why I wasn't going to pay for her cart of groceries.
"You say your a minister of Christ, so what church are you attending?"
"I'm not attending church. I can't. I don't have a vehicle."
I think she could see the look on my face, at this point, and she knew what I was about to offer. She quickly back-tracked.
"I've been to five different churches and they're all corrupt! I was at one church and I was going to pray for a lady there and the pastor told me I couldn't pray for anyone else because every time I pray for someone they die."
"Well, yes, there are plenty of places that call themselves Christian churches, but I know of several good churches around town that you could attend. If you are a minister for Jesus Christ then you should be surrounded by the body of Christ."
"The church is not the building. The church is the people. The church is the people filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and do you know what that power is? Do you know what that power is?"
"Faith."
"Yes, the power of the Holy Spirit and faith, do you know what it is?"
"No, faith is the evidence of the Holy Spirit. Christians should be surrounded by people with like faith, the body of Christ. You claim to be a minister of Christ but you are outside of the body of faith."
"I left my house, my job, and my car to minister in Jesus' name. I want to see you do that! You try that!...Christians are supposed to help each other but you won't help me."
"The question is, what is helping?"
"What?"
"What would help you?"
"I'm hungry. I don't have any food in the motel, and I don't have any money. Someone was kind enough to buy me this, but this is all I have. I'm just asking you to pay for these few groceries for me."
I looked at the food she was referring to. It was orange chicken from the deli section. Her story was further unraveling before me. Either, I was not the first person she asked to pay for her groceries and the other person bought her something at the deli, or she was lying.
"I don't think paying for your groceries is going to help you..."
"So be it. It will be done to you as you have done."
The last sentence she said under her breath as she rode her motorized cart towards the dairy section. I didn't get to finish my sentence.
I continued my shopping, more scatter brained than usual. I visited several isles numerous times. I hopped around the store, unable to organize my thoughts. I kept asking myself, Did I do the right thing? I was truly conflicted. What if she was telling the truth? What if she truly is a Christian and she's just lost her way temporarily? Shouldn't I have paid for her groceries, given her a ride back to the motel, and arranged to pick her up tomorrow morning on my way to church?
I got out to my car, placed the groceries in the trunk, and headed home. At the stop sign was a young lady holding a sign: Everything counts. Underneath the words was an ichthys (the fish symbol). I revisited the whole story as I drove home.
First of all, my first interaction with this woman was quite strange. Asking for blueberries on the top shelf isn't strange when you are in a motorized cart, but her reaction was strange. No thank you. No sign of appreciation. No recognition of my assistance. It was as if I owed her the opportunity to do what I did. It didn't come across rude, but rather, entitled.
When I saw her the second time, it was if she had been looking for me. The first thing she asked me was, "Are you a Christian." As soon as I answered affirmatively, she believed she had me hook, line, and sink 'em.
Well meaning Christians often are the worse offenders when providing hand outs to people that ask for them. When I was growing up, I remember hearing the grown ups talk about the best way to help people asking for money on the streets. They said that rather than giving them money you should pay for their gas, give them a meal, or pay for their groceries. However, whether it is money, a gas tank's worth of gas, a free meal, or a grocery bill covered by someone else's generosity, a handout is a handout.
Handouts don't help anyone.
First of all, handouts really hurt the people asking for them. Many of these people are con artists and not really homeless, impoverished, or hungry like they make themselves out to be. They'll tell you a story about how they just hit hard times, they don't usually ask anyone for help, but they just need to ask you this one time. In fact, many of them do this for a living. They get to choose their own hours, they don't have to answer to anyone, and they can make good money.
Those asking for a handout that aren't conning you, are preying on you in another way. They often take no responsibility for the problem in which they are asking you to help them with. Rather, they make you feel like the responsibility is all yours to help them. Especially if they find out that you're a Christian. They will make you feel like your faith in Christ and Christ's command to help the poor obligates you to give into their request.
This lady at Walmart put the responsibility of her hunger and destitution on me rather than herself. She would go hungry for the weekend if I wouldn't pay for her groceries. However, I didn't give her the opportunity to guilt me or obligate me into buying her groceries because I knew that she was responsible for her own situation. She wasn't hungry because I wouldn't pay for her groceries. She was hungry because she wasn't managing her money properly, she wasn't seeking other means of provision, and she was turning her back on a faith community that would help take care of her. None of these things were in my control. I could have paid for a small cart of groceries, but the underlying problem that was causing her hunger wouldn't have been addressed.
If you are a fellow believer, I want to be very careful about what I say next and I want you to read what I write very carefully:
As a Christian, you are not obligated by your faith to provide handouts to everyone that asks you for one. As a Christian, you are obligated by your faith in Christ to help those in need of help.
Anytime someone approaches you and asks you to help them, don't get flustered, don't panic, and don't feel any obligation to give them what they want. Explain to them that you want to help them, but you have to consider the best way to help them. Rest assured, a hand out of any sort will not help them. It will abate the situation they find themselves in that day, but it doesn't address the underlying problem.
Some people have a rule not to give money to anyone, but they are not opposed to buying a meal, paying for groceries, filling up a gas tank, or paying for a hotel room. However, this is no better than just giving them money.
As an example, if an alcoholic asks you for money and you buy him a meal, you just gave him five dollars to continue to support his bad habit. How? Now he doesn't have to spend five dollars for dinner, and he can use the next five a stranger give him to buy a bottle.
I cannot iterate enough that a handout doesn't help anyone.
As Christians, we've believed for a while that giving handouts are okay as long as it isn't money. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert's book When Helping Hurts is a wonderful book that should be required reading for deacons and Christians who want to help the poor and homeless. The title of the book has a double meaning. When Christians think they are helping someone asking for a handout they are actually hurting that person. They are alleviating a temporary problem in that person's life that will continue to persist as long as that person doesn't take responsibility for their own actions, bad habits, and sinfulness.
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.
It's something we've all heard and believe to be true. If it is true, then why are Christians giving men fish every single day? Just because you don't give the person money, doesn't mean that you're not giving that person a fish. Every handout is a fish in this equation. Every handout gives the person to avoid taking responsibility for their problem for another day, enjoy the spoils at another person's expense, and motivates them to add a new destructive pattern of expecting handouts from others to their repertoire of bad and destructive habits.
This kind of "helping" also hurts other people. People seeking handouts are persistent and are very good at getting what they want. They pull on the strings of your heart, they make you feel guilty, they toy with your emotions, and they will make it very hard to say no. As long as you give in to their request, you are hurting the next person they are going to take advantage of. The next person might not have the capacity you have to help, and the next person might be hurt far more than you.
The other meaning of this title is the meaning most often lost on the reader. Truly helping someone asking for a handout is really going to hurt. It is this pain that many Christians (myself included) try to avoid at all costs. It is far easier to give a man a fish. It takes a lot of work, commitment, devotion, and persistence to teach a man to fish. You have to get involved with his life, you have to get to know him, you have to spend time with him, and you have to invest in him. Although this would change the man's life, it would really change your's as well. Your schedule would have to change, you might not get to what you hoped you would, and you would have to go out of your way.
Christians, we're throwing fish at these people left and right and we're complaining about the way they take advantage of government resources. We're letting them take advantage of us but we fault the government for letting them take advantage of welfare, food stamps, and other social services. This exposes another meaning to the title When Helping Hurts. When we get tired of people taking advantage of us, asking for handouts that they don't need, lying to us, and making us feel obligated to help them, it hurts people who are actually in an emergency situation and need assistance. Christians, like myself today, grow skeptical of everyone asking for immediate assistance. For all I know, the lady at Walmart today could have been telling me the wholehearted truth and I should have intervened more than I did. She may have spent five days without food and she just needed a few groceries to hold her off until Monday. She may have had an expected expense this month that caused her to burn through her fixed income faster than expected. These are possibilities that I was forced to try to outweigh with my knowledge of most people that ask for handouts.
So, what should we do, as Christians, when someone approaches us for a handout?
We should look to Christ.
We have four books in our Bibles that provide four eyewitness accounts of Jesus' earthly ministry. Jesus interacted with the poor all the time. In fact, Jesus was a homeless man when He began His ministry. He didn't have anywhere to lay His head at night.
First of all, as we look to Christ, we have to consider His example but also consider our limitations. He was a man just like us, but He was also wholly God. Whenever we look to Christ, we have to keep this in mind. It is important to consider What would Jesus do? because we should seek to follow His lead, but we must never forget What did Jesus do? because we cannot, of our own strength, do what Jesus did. As we look at Christ's ministry, we see an example that we should follow and that He calls us to follow as His disciples, but we are also called to see that Jesus came to do what we cannot. He accomplished what we couldn't and can't, and we must keep our eyes on Him not only to follow His footsteps but also to be carried by Him when we cannot do as He did.
Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus had great compassion on the poor, lame, and needy. He didn't require anything of them before He fed them, clothed them, healed them, and changed their lives. There is a lot about Jesus' ministry to the poor that we don't know about. It would probably take several of the volumes that John speaks of at the end of his gospel account. We get glimpses here and there of Jesus' ministry to the poor. We know that Jesus and the disciples were raising money to support the poor because Judas was in charge of purse. Therefore, we know that Jesus provided money to the poor and He also provided handouts.
If you look at Christ's miracles and ministries to the poor, lame, and diseased, you'll notice a common theme: faith. The handouts are never given and the miracles are never performed for the sake of fixing a physical, temporary problem. These are all faith experiences for those that Jesus touched, healed, and fed. Jesus didn't just heal a person's physical problem, He had the power and ability to heal their spiritual problem. He came up to a crippled man and said, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." After Jesus heard the evil thoughts of the Pharisees, He remedied the man's physical disability because of their unbelief. They thought making a paralytic walk was a greater demonstration of power than forgiving a lifetime of sin. Christ performed both miracles, and yet, they still didn't believe.
Christ didn't come to eliminate poverty, disease, and hunger. It was Christ that promised, "You always have the poor with you" (Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8). Do you remember the circumstance in which Jesus said this and to whom He said this too? It was after Mary anointed Christ's feet with an expensive bottle of oil. Matthew and Mark say that the disciples were upset, but John singles out Judas for being upset:
"He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it." (John 12:6)
Christ said that whenever we want, we can do good for the poor (Mark 14:7), but that is not why He came. He saw what Mary did and called it beautiful because she recognized what Christ came to do. She was preparing His body for burial. She recognized that His ministry was so much bigger than healing physical problems and providing remedies for physical ailments. She believed Jesus was God, she believed Jesus was the Christ, and she knew that He was going to die because of this. The disciples, especially Judas, didn't see this. They thought Christ's kingdom was of this world and that He was going to build it by empowering the underdogs to overthrow the elitists that were oppressing them.
Christ's ministry to the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the oppressed wasn't about allowing them to fix a physical, temporary problem in their life. It was about calling them out of their unbelief, forgiving their sins, and calling them to place their faith in Him to restore them to God.
Remember what Jesus said to the crowd of five thousand that followed Him after He provided them all with a free meal the night before?
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
(John 6:26-34 ESV)
After this, Jesus clearly demonstrates that His ministry was not about handouts but was about providing a meal that wouldn't perish: Himself. He said that He was the bread of life. Those who place their faith in Him will no longer hunger or thirst, but rather, would be nourished on a food far greater than the food of angels. Their faith in Him would cleanse them of their sin, reconcile them with the Father, make them adopted children of the most high God, and they would be restored both spiritually and physically. The Jewish crowd was disheartened by this response. They just feasted on Jesus' miracle the night before, but now that Jesus was talking about having a much greater purpose than filling their bellies, they saw Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph rather than the Son of God.
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
(John 6:66 ESV)
This is the case for many people who receive handouts. They don't want the bread of life, but rather, they just want their daily bread and at your expense. As a disciple of Christ, your commission is to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20). A handout without any responsibility to abandon sinful habits, seek forgiveness in Christ and Him alone, and seek reconciliation with God the Father in Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit is just that...a handout. It's not a ministry. It's not helping anyone.
As Christians, we are called to minister to the poor. But we must minister to the poor by following the example of Christ Jesus. When Jesus ministered to the poor He wasn't trying to eliminate their lack of physical wealth. He was addressing the poverty that plagues the entire globe: spiritual poverty.
As a former deacon, I saw and participated in several examples of what not to do. The poor come to churches and up to Christians expecting handouts. That is, sadly, how we like to operate. It's easier, it's less messy, it's quick and painless, and...IT'S UNEFFECTIVE! God has brought this precious soul to you. They are oblivious to their sinfulness, their need for salvation, their redeemer, Christ Jesus, and the means of grace He provided to not only nourish His church spiritually but also to expand it. They know that Christians feel obligated to help the poor, and more often than not, they leverage that to get a quick handout (what they're looking for). We need to look to Christ, follow His example, remember that His earthly ministry was all about His death and resurrection, and seek to share that instead of or along with a handout.
I truly feel convicted that any homeless person seeking a handout from my church should be invited to worship with us before or after they're request is attended to. Our ministry to him or her should be a spiritual one first and foremost. Every provision for that person should be followed up with prayer, an attempt to provide accountability for provisions requested or received, and room for the relationship to grow into something more than just a fish chuck. These precious people are at our doorsteps and we are throwing them a bone and turning our backs on them. God is bringing them to us and we are forgetting our commission from Christ. We are forgetting to look to Christ and His ministry to the poor. We are failing to do our job as His people, His disciples, and His church.
Although I have these strong convictions, that doesn't mean that I am able to perform them. This is where it is always crucial to look to Christ as a man and as the Son of God. I know what Jesus would do, but I'm scared to do it and uncomfortable when I try to do it. I need to remember not only what Jesus would do but what He did do as it pertains to what He accomplished on my behalf. He sent us a helper, the Holy Spirit, to continually sanctify and conform me more and more into the image of Christ. God pours out grace abundantly when our faith is lacking. Time and time again, like today at Walmart, I feel ashamed and unable to do the things that I want to do. My interactions with the woman at the store didn't go the way I wanted them to, my denial to pay for her groceries was seen as a betrayal of the faith in Christ that I claimed to have, and I did not do a good job of demonstrating my desire to see her fed with the fellowship of Christ and His church. That is where I need to continue to look to Christ, knowing that He makes me whole where I am lacking and that the same Spirit that comforted Him is the Spirit that comforts, helps, and sanctifies me to be more and more like Him, to the glory of God the Father.
In a post script, you can see that I have very high expectations of deacons and those overseeing the ministry of mercy. Unfortunately, I feel that many churches across America neglect the biblical duties of deacons. I admonish any congregation that treats their deacons as custodians and outlines their duties as facility managers, temp workers for congregant needs, and mere financial stewards. The office of deacon has been marginalized in many modern churches, and this stems heavily from modern churches neglecting their Christian duty to the needy. In the early church, the needy and the church were almost synonymous terms. Today, the universal church could do far more to help the needy, but we take a back seat and complain about the government spending of taxpayer dollars on the homeless, hungry, and impoverished services that don't ever fix the problem. That's because money and handouts cannot change a person's spiritual poverty.
Christ's ministry clearly demonstrates that He came to minister to the sick, the poor, the lame, the oppressed, and the lost. Both the spiritually sick, the spiritually poor, the spiritually dead, the spiritually oppressed, and the spiritually lost and the physical equivalent. If your deacons are not following Christ's example and focusing a large portion of their time and the church's financial resources by setting an example of what it takes to truly help the poor or by supporting a Godly organization that helps the poor, then I do not believe your church or your deacons are performing their biblical duties.
The deacon's duty is simply to provide physical acts of mercy expecting spiritual results.
Their duty is not to lock up after everyone else has left, take the offering and count it, make sure that all of the church toilets flush and the squeaky board in the floor gets oiled, and be the work horses whenever a congregant has a physical task that requires help. These are all good things for the whole church to be involved in, both young and old. You do not need to meet the biblical requirements of 1 Timothy 3:8-13 to perform these tasks. These are not duties that require a calling and ordination. These are not the duties of deacons.
The duty of a deacon is to continue Christ's earthly ministry towards the poor, lame, sick, and oppressed while He is absent, seeking to alleviate their physical ailments by focusing on their spiritual ailment. This is a calling, this requires special men with special gifts, this requires great faith, and this is why, "those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 3:13). If they are serving and performing the duty God has called them to, they see over and over again how faith in Christ Jesus changes people in an astounding way. I didn't learn about how to be a good deacon in the church, unfortunately. I learned in a Christian homeless shelter, and I'm hoping to challenge you and your church to visit a homeless shelter to see how faith in Christ Jesus changes people. You'll be astounded too and I hope it changes the way you see the duties of your deacons.
It's Saturday afternoon, and after scrounging for what I could find in the fridge to make some lunch, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and make a trip to the dreaded Walmart for some groceries.
I don't know what comes to mind when you think of Walmart because Walmarts are all over the place...some of them in good neighborhoods and some of them in bad neighborhoods. I wouldn't say the one closest to us in a bad neighborhood, but it's certainly not the best.
I am in the produce section, walking over to grab a bagged salad, and a lady in a scooter cart grabs my attention:
"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Do you see those blueberries up there?"
"Yes, how many would you like?"
"Will you grab one?"
"Certainly."
I grabbed her a small package of blueberries and handed them to her. She took them, and continued on with her shopping. I must admit, it instantly struck me that she seemed upset about the exchange. She looked upset when I handed her the blueberries, she didn't smile, and she didn't show any appreciation. I literally shrugged my shoulders and continued towards the bagged salads. I just added her behavior to a long list of characters that I have met at Walmart over the years. I assumed she was having a bad day.
After grabbing my bagged salad, I heard my wife's voice in my head. It said, "Get the non-perishables before you fill your cart with perishables and food starts spoiling." Actually, the voice just said, "Who taught you to grocery shop?" but I knew what it meant.
I left the grocery section to grab some cosmetics and household goods. I returned to the grocery section about ten minutes later. The lady in the scooter was coming down the main aisle, saw me, looked as if she had been looking for me, and bee-lined it towards me. I made eye contact, expecting her to ask me to grab something off the top shelf again.
"Excuse me, are you a Christian?"
"Yes I am."
"What church do you go to?"
I proceeded to explain that I attend a Reformed Presbyterian church downtown. She explained that she grew up in the Presbyterian church but she was now a Pentecostal. She also proceeded to explain to me that she was a minister of Christ Jesus, called by Him to abandon everything to minister in His name. She was living off of social security and welfare checks, her monthly checks wouldn't arrive until Tuesday because Labor Day was the following Monday, she had no food, and she asked if I would pay for her groceries.
I started to explain that I work at a local homeless shelter, and she interrupted me to explain that she couldn't go there. She didn't have a car or any mode of transportation. A man at the motel she was staying at gave her a ride to Walmart to buy her groceries. She didn't ask him to help her with the groceries because she felt like he didn't have money and she only asks Christians.
However, I wasn't telling her that I work at a homeless shelter so that I could suggest she go there. She didn't look like the part of a homeless individual needing a meal. I was going to explain to her that I work at a homeless shelter, and I am very skeptical of anyone asking for a handout. I told her that I wanted to help her (I wasn't lying), but I had been burned by too many people seeking help before. I didn't tell her this so I could walk on. I explained this to her so that I could tell her that I didn't believe her story and that I wasn't going to pay for her groceries. I still had every intention of trying to help her, however.
She quickly became defensive.
"I'm not lying to you. You can see in my eyes that I am not lying to you. I'm a Christian asking a fellow Christian to help me."
I looked again at the groceries in her basket, I took a deep breath, and I did something very difficult: I said no. I didn't say the word, but I began the process of telling her why I wasn't going to pay for her cart of groceries.
"You say your a minister of Christ, so what church are you attending?"
"I'm not attending church. I can't. I don't have a vehicle."
I think she could see the look on my face, at this point, and she knew what I was about to offer. She quickly back-tracked.
"I've been to five different churches and they're all corrupt! I was at one church and I was going to pray for a lady there and the pastor told me I couldn't pray for anyone else because every time I pray for someone they die."
"Well, yes, there are plenty of places that call themselves Christian churches, but I know of several good churches around town that you could attend. If you are a minister for Jesus Christ then you should be surrounded by the body of Christ."
"The church is not the building. The church is the people. The church is the people filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and do you know what that power is? Do you know what that power is?"
"Faith."
"Yes, the power of the Holy Spirit and faith, do you know what it is?"
"No, faith is the evidence of the Holy Spirit. Christians should be surrounded by people with like faith, the body of Christ. You claim to be a minister of Christ but you are outside of the body of faith."
"I left my house, my job, and my car to minister in Jesus' name. I want to see you do that! You try that!...Christians are supposed to help each other but you won't help me."
"The question is, what is helping?"
"What?"
"What would help you?"
"I'm hungry. I don't have any food in the motel, and I don't have any money. Someone was kind enough to buy me this, but this is all I have. I'm just asking you to pay for these few groceries for me."
I looked at the food she was referring to. It was orange chicken from the deli section. Her story was further unraveling before me. Either, I was not the first person she asked to pay for her groceries and the other person bought her something at the deli, or she was lying.
"I don't think paying for your groceries is going to help you..."
"So be it. It will be done to you as you have done."
The last sentence she said under her breath as she rode her motorized cart towards the dairy section. I didn't get to finish my sentence.
I continued my shopping, more scatter brained than usual. I visited several isles numerous times. I hopped around the store, unable to organize my thoughts. I kept asking myself, Did I do the right thing? I was truly conflicted. What if she was telling the truth? What if she truly is a Christian and she's just lost her way temporarily? Shouldn't I have paid for her groceries, given her a ride back to the motel, and arranged to pick her up tomorrow morning on my way to church?
I got out to my car, placed the groceries in the trunk, and headed home. At the stop sign was a young lady holding a sign: Everything counts. Underneath the words was an ichthys (the fish symbol). I revisited the whole story as I drove home.
First of all, my first interaction with this woman was quite strange. Asking for blueberries on the top shelf isn't strange when you are in a motorized cart, but her reaction was strange. No thank you. No sign of appreciation. No recognition of my assistance. It was as if I owed her the opportunity to do what I did. It didn't come across rude, but rather, entitled.
When I saw her the second time, it was if she had been looking for me. The first thing she asked me was, "Are you a Christian." As soon as I answered affirmatively, she believed she had me hook, line, and sink 'em.
Well meaning Christians often are the worse offenders when providing hand outs to people that ask for them. When I was growing up, I remember hearing the grown ups talk about the best way to help people asking for money on the streets. They said that rather than giving them money you should pay for their gas, give them a meal, or pay for their groceries. However, whether it is money, a gas tank's worth of gas, a free meal, or a grocery bill covered by someone else's generosity, a handout is a handout.
Handouts don't help anyone.
First of all, handouts really hurt the people asking for them. Many of these people are con artists and not really homeless, impoverished, or hungry like they make themselves out to be. They'll tell you a story about how they just hit hard times, they don't usually ask anyone for help, but they just need to ask you this one time. In fact, many of them do this for a living. They get to choose their own hours, they don't have to answer to anyone, and they can make good money.
Those asking for a handout that aren't conning you, are preying on you in another way. They often take no responsibility for the problem in which they are asking you to help them with. Rather, they make you feel like the responsibility is all yours to help them. Especially if they find out that you're a Christian. They will make you feel like your faith in Christ and Christ's command to help the poor obligates you to give into their request.
This lady at Walmart put the responsibility of her hunger and destitution on me rather than herself. She would go hungry for the weekend if I wouldn't pay for her groceries. However, I didn't give her the opportunity to guilt me or obligate me into buying her groceries because I knew that she was responsible for her own situation. She wasn't hungry because I wouldn't pay for her groceries. She was hungry because she wasn't managing her money properly, she wasn't seeking other means of provision, and she was turning her back on a faith community that would help take care of her. None of these things were in my control. I could have paid for a small cart of groceries, but the underlying problem that was causing her hunger wouldn't have been addressed.
If you are a fellow believer, I want to be very careful about what I say next and I want you to read what I write very carefully:
As a Christian, you are not obligated by your faith to provide handouts to everyone that asks you for one. As a Christian, you are obligated by your faith in Christ to help those in need of help.
Anytime someone approaches you and asks you to help them, don't get flustered, don't panic, and don't feel any obligation to give them what they want. Explain to them that you want to help them, but you have to consider the best way to help them. Rest assured, a hand out of any sort will not help them. It will abate the situation they find themselves in that day, but it doesn't address the underlying problem.
Some people have a rule not to give money to anyone, but they are not opposed to buying a meal, paying for groceries, filling up a gas tank, or paying for a hotel room. However, this is no better than just giving them money.
As an example, if an alcoholic asks you for money and you buy him a meal, you just gave him five dollars to continue to support his bad habit. How? Now he doesn't have to spend five dollars for dinner, and he can use the next five a stranger give him to buy a bottle.
I cannot iterate enough that a handout doesn't help anyone.
As Christians, we've believed for a while that giving handouts are okay as long as it isn't money. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert's book When Helping Hurts is a wonderful book that should be required reading for deacons and Christians who want to help the poor and homeless. The title of the book has a double meaning. When Christians think they are helping someone asking for a handout they are actually hurting that person. They are alleviating a temporary problem in that person's life that will continue to persist as long as that person doesn't take responsibility for their own actions, bad habits, and sinfulness.
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.
It's something we've all heard and believe to be true. If it is true, then why are Christians giving men fish every single day? Just because you don't give the person money, doesn't mean that you're not giving that person a fish. Every handout is a fish in this equation. Every handout gives the person to avoid taking responsibility for their problem for another day, enjoy the spoils at another person's expense, and motivates them to add a new destructive pattern of expecting handouts from others to their repertoire of bad and destructive habits.
This kind of "helping" also hurts other people. People seeking handouts are persistent and are very good at getting what they want. They pull on the strings of your heart, they make you feel guilty, they toy with your emotions, and they will make it very hard to say no. As long as you give in to their request, you are hurting the next person they are going to take advantage of. The next person might not have the capacity you have to help, and the next person might be hurt far more than you.
The other meaning of this title is the meaning most often lost on the reader. Truly helping someone asking for a handout is really going to hurt. It is this pain that many Christians (myself included) try to avoid at all costs. It is far easier to give a man a fish. It takes a lot of work, commitment, devotion, and persistence to teach a man to fish. You have to get involved with his life, you have to get to know him, you have to spend time with him, and you have to invest in him. Although this would change the man's life, it would really change your's as well. Your schedule would have to change, you might not get to what you hoped you would, and you would have to go out of your way.
Christians, we're throwing fish at these people left and right and we're complaining about the way they take advantage of government resources. We're letting them take advantage of us but we fault the government for letting them take advantage of welfare, food stamps, and other social services. This exposes another meaning to the title When Helping Hurts. When we get tired of people taking advantage of us, asking for handouts that they don't need, lying to us, and making us feel obligated to help them, it hurts people who are actually in an emergency situation and need assistance. Christians, like myself today, grow skeptical of everyone asking for immediate assistance. For all I know, the lady at Walmart today could have been telling me the wholehearted truth and I should have intervened more than I did. She may have spent five days without food and she just needed a few groceries to hold her off until Monday. She may have had an expected expense this month that caused her to burn through her fixed income faster than expected. These are possibilities that I was forced to try to outweigh with my knowledge of most people that ask for handouts.
So, what should we do, as Christians, when someone approaches us for a handout?
We should look to Christ.
We have four books in our Bibles that provide four eyewitness accounts of Jesus' earthly ministry. Jesus interacted with the poor all the time. In fact, Jesus was a homeless man when He began His ministry. He didn't have anywhere to lay His head at night.
First of all, as we look to Christ, we have to consider His example but also consider our limitations. He was a man just like us, but He was also wholly God. Whenever we look to Christ, we have to keep this in mind. It is important to consider What would Jesus do? because we should seek to follow His lead, but we must never forget What did Jesus do? because we cannot, of our own strength, do what Jesus did. As we look at Christ's ministry, we see an example that we should follow and that He calls us to follow as His disciples, but we are also called to see that Jesus came to do what we cannot. He accomplished what we couldn't and can't, and we must keep our eyes on Him not only to follow His footsteps but also to be carried by Him when we cannot do as He did.
Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus had great compassion on the poor, lame, and needy. He didn't require anything of them before He fed them, clothed them, healed them, and changed their lives. There is a lot about Jesus' ministry to the poor that we don't know about. It would probably take several of the volumes that John speaks of at the end of his gospel account. We get glimpses here and there of Jesus' ministry to the poor. We know that Jesus and the disciples were raising money to support the poor because Judas was in charge of purse. Therefore, we know that Jesus provided money to the poor and He also provided handouts.
If you look at Christ's miracles and ministries to the poor, lame, and diseased, you'll notice a common theme: faith. The handouts are never given and the miracles are never performed for the sake of fixing a physical, temporary problem. These are all faith experiences for those that Jesus touched, healed, and fed. Jesus didn't just heal a person's physical problem, He had the power and ability to heal their spiritual problem. He came up to a crippled man and said, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." After Jesus heard the evil thoughts of the Pharisees, He remedied the man's physical disability because of their unbelief. They thought making a paralytic walk was a greater demonstration of power than forgiving a lifetime of sin. Christ performed both miracles, and yet, they still didn't believe.
Christ didn't come to eliminate poverty, disease, and hunger. It was Christ that promised, "You always have the poor with you" (Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8). Do you remember the circumstance in which Jesus said this and to whom He said this too? It was after Mary anointed Christ's feet with an expensive bottle of oil. Matthew and Mark say that the disciples were upset, but John singles out Judas for being upset:
"He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it." (John 12:6)
Christ said that whenever we want, we can do good for the poor (Mark 14:7), but that is not why He came. He saw what Mary did and called it beautiful because she recognized what Christ came to do. She was preparing His body for burial. She recognized that His ministry was so much bigger than healing physical problems and providing remedies for physical ailments. She believed Jesus was God, she believed Jesus was the Christ, and she knew that He was going to die because of this. The disciples, especially Judas, didn't see this. They thought Christ's kingdom was of this world and that He was going to build it by empowering the underdogs to overthrow the elitists that were oppressing them.
Christ's ministry to the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the oppressed wasn't about allowing them to fix a physical, temporary problem in their life. It was about calling them out of their unbelief, forgiving their sins, and calling them to place their faith in Him to restore them to God.
Remember what Jesus said to the crowd of five thousand that followed Him after He provided them all with a free meal the night before?
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
(John 6:26-34 ESV)
After this, Jesus clearly demonstrates that His ministry was not about handouts but was about providing a meal that wouldn't perish: Himself. He said that He was the bread of life. Those who place their faith in Him will no longer hunger or thirst, but rather, would be nourished on a food far greater than the food of angels. Their faith in Him would cleanse them of their sin, reconcile them with the Father, make them adopted children of the most high God, and they would be restored both spiritually and physically. The Jewish crowd was disheartened by this response. They just feasted on Jesus' miracle the night before, but now that Jesus was talking about having a much greater purpose than filling their bellies, they saw Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph rather than the Son of God.
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
(John 6:66 ESV)
This is the case for many people who receive handouts. They don't want the bread of life, but rather, they just want their daily bread and at your expense. As a disciple of Christ, your commission is to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20). A handout without any responsibility to abandon sinful habits, seek forgiveness in Christ and Him alone, and seek reconciliation with God the Father in Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit is just that...a handout. It's not a ministry. It's not helping anyone.
As Christians, we are called to minister to the poor. But we must minister to the poor by following the example of Christ Jesus. When Jesus ministered to the poor He wasn't trying to eliminate their lack of physical wealth. He was addressing the poverty that plagues the entire globe: spiritual poverty.
As a former deacon, I saw and participated in several examples of what not to do. The poor come to churches and up to Christians expecting handouts. That is, sadly, how we like to operate. It's easier, it's less messy, it's quick and painless, and...IT'S UNEFFECTIVE! God has brought this precious soul to you. They are oblivious to their sinfulness, their need for salvation, their redeemer, Christ Jesus, and the means of grace He provided to not only nourish His church spiritually but also to expand it. They know that Christians feel obligated to help the poor, and more often than not, they leverage that to get a quick handout (what they're looking for). We need to look to Christ, follow His example, remember that His earthly ministry was all about His death and resurrection, and seek to share that instead of or along with a handout.
I truly feel convicted that any homeless person seeking a handout from my church should be invited to worship with us before or after they're request is attended to. Our ministry to him or her should be a spiritual one first and foremost. Every provision for that person should be followed up with prayer, an attempt to provide accountability for provisions requested or received, and room for the relationship to grow into something more than just a fish chuck. These precious people are at our doorsteps and we are throwing them a bone and turning our backs on them. God is bringing them to us and we are forgetting our commission from Christ. We are forgetting to look to Christ and His ministry to the poor. We are failing to do our job as His people, His disciples, and His church.
Although I have these strong convictions, that doesn't mean that I am able to perform them. This is where it is always crucial to look to Christ as a man and as the Son of God. I know what Jesus would do, but I'm scared to do it and uncomfortable when I try to do it. I need to remember not only what Jesus would do but what He did do as it pertains to what He accomplished on my behalf. He sent us a helper, the Holy Spirit, to continually sanctify and conform me more and more into the image of Christ. God pours out grace abundantly when our faith is lacking. Time and time again, like today at Walmart, I feel ashamed and unable to do the things that I want to do. My interactions with the woman at the store didn't go the way I wanted them to, my denial to pay for her groceries was seen as a betrayal of the faith in Christ that I claimed to have, and I did not do a good job of demonstrating my desire to see her fed with the fellowship of Christ and His church. That is where I need to continue to look to Christ, knowing that He makes me whole where I am lacking and that the same Spirit that comforted Him is the Spirit that comforts, helps, and sanctifies me to be more and more like Him, to the glory of God the Father.
In a post script, you can see that I have very high expectations of deacons and those overseeing the ministry of mercy. Unfortunately, I feel that many churches across America neglect the biblical duties of deacons. I admonish any congregation that treats their deacons as custodians and outlines their duties as facility managers, temp workers for congregant needs, and mere financial stewards. The office of deacon has been marginalized in many modern churches, and this stems heavily from modern churches neglecting their Christian duty to the needy. In the early church, the needy and the church were almost synonymous terms. Today, the universal church could do far more to help the needy, but we take a back seat and complain about the government spending of taxpayer dollars on the homeless, hungry, and impoverished services that don't ever fix the problem. That's because money and handouts cannot change a person's spiritual poverty.
Christ's ministry clearly demonstrates that He came to minister to the sick, the poor, the lame, the oppressed, and the lost. Both the spiritually sick, the spiritually poor, the spiritually dead, the spiritually oppressed, and the spiritually lost and the physical equivalent. If your deacons are not following Christ's example and focusing a large portion of their time and the church's financial resources by setting an example of what it takes to truly help the poor or by supporting a Godly organization that helps the poor, then I do not believe your church or your deacons are performing their biblical duties.
The deacon's duty is simply to provide physical acts of mercy expecting spiritual results.
Their duty is not to lock up after everyone else has left, take the offering and count it, make sure that all of the church toilets flush and the squeaky board in the floor gets oiled, and be the work horses whenever a congregant has a physical task that requires help. These are all good things for the whole church to be involved in, both young and old. You do not need to meet the biblical requirements of 1 Timothy 3:8-13 to perform these tasks. These are not duties that require a calling and ordination. These are not the duties of deacons.
The duty of a deacon is to continue Christ's earthly ministry towards the poor, lame, sick, and oppressed while He is absent, seeking to alleviate their physical ailments by focusing on their spiritual ailment. This is a calling, this requires special men with special gifts, this requires great faith, and this is why, "those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 3:13). If they are serving and performing the duty God has called them to, they see over and over again how faith in Christ Jesus changes people in an astounding way. I didn't learn about how to be a good deacon in the church, unfortunately. I learned in a Christian homeless shelter, and I'm hoping to challenge you and your church to visit a homeless shelter to see how faith in Christ Jesus changes people. You'll be astounded too and I hope it changes the way you see the duties of your deacons.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
The Definition of Homeless
Homeless.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word? A drunkard? A panhandler? A swindler? A substance abuser? A lazy fool? An unkempt societal plague?
Many people have ill conceived, disappointing, and quiet honestly, sinful, perceptions of what it means to be homeless. The definition of what it means to be homeless is in the very word itself:
If you do not have a place to call home then you are homeless.
There is a difference between being houseless and homeless. A house is a physical structure. A house provides shelter from the cold, the rain, the snow, and the wind. A house can be opened up to welcome in family and friends or shut up to exclude criminals and enemies. A house can be built or torn down and then rebuilt because it is a physical place.
Over the past few years in Colorado, there have been several destructive forest fires and terrible thunderstorms that caused massive flooding. Thousands of people were displaced from their houses. The fires consumed hundreds of structures and the floods destroyed hundreds more. However, Colorado's homeless numbers didn't drastically surge during this period. Despite being houseless, many families still had a place to call home. Their home wasn't defined by the physical walls and roof that surrounded them but it was defined by the family unit's love for each other, their determination to overcome tragedy together, and their ability to draw closer to each other during this time of struggle, want, and reconstruction.
Their is a stark contrast between being homeless and houseless. By pointing it out to you I hope that I can maybe start to re-paint an ugly picture that your thoughtless and impressionable mind and heart have allowed our materialistic culture to create within you.
Let me start out with the background. The background is usually dark and bleak. The portrait of a homeless person typically starts off with a canvas of a much darker hue than most people's. The environment is filled with hostility and animosity. Parents that are physically and verbally abusive. Pedophiles and molesters. Drug dealers and gang members. Domestic violence and murder. This is no Bob Ross painting. There are no fluffy clouds or happy trees with their happy tree friends here. The landscape is desolate, destroyed, scorched, and devastated. The trees lie torched by firestorm after firestorm and the rocks that cover the landscape have a thick layer of soot on them.
Many homeless people don't have a home and they never have. Since they were young children they've never had a place to call home. They may or may not have grown up in a house or apartment, but this place wasn't home to them. For some it was a torture chamber and for others it was a dungeon. This place housed them, their few belongings, and their tormentors. They couldn't stand the place, and they knew that any other place in the world had to be better than their house. Many of them made a dangerous and sometimes a courageous decision to risk life on the streets rather than housed under the roof of their greatest enemy.
Other homeless people's backgrounds aren't as dark. They start off with a beautiful canvas covered with every color of the palette in every shape and shade. They grew up in a house, a beautiful home, surrounded by people that loved them, cherished them, and called them family. They were homeful. However, disaster struck. Something turned their homeful life upside down, inside out, and discombobulated it in every way. Rape, molestation, domestic violence, abuse, drugs, alcohol, human trafficking, infidelity, death of a loved one, tragedy, war, unemployment, or coming out to their family. Tragedy forcefully dismantled their emotional home. The family they loved was lost or disowned them. Their friends grew few and less supportive. They had no one to turn to. No one to trust. No one to believe. They had no one.
This is the portrait of homelessness. Notice that the portrait of the person doesn't matter at all. It is the background. It is the environment that defines homelessness. A homeless person never ceases being a person. Their portrait resembles yours and mine down to every blemish, wrinkle, hair, feature, and facet. There is nothing about their essence that separates them from you and me.
What might happen if a homeless person was given a place to call home? What if they had a place to go when they were scared, tired, or at their wits end and were welcomed home with arms wide open and accepted by a warm, firm embrace? Isn't that what most of us appreciate most about our home? Is it not the fact that no matter how hard our weekdays, workdays, schooldays, and holidays are we have somewhere we can be surrounded by the people we love, the people that love us and accept us for just who we are, both the good and the bad? That's home.
If you give a homeless person a house you have not cured what ails them. If you give a homeless person a twenty dollar bill you are not helping cure what plagues them. If you give a homeless person a meal from McDonald's you shouldn't pat yourself on the back for doing your good deed for the year because you haven't accomplished much of anything.
"'For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’"
(Matthew 25:42-45 ESV)
I know of a place that should be full of people that desire to give food to the food-less, drink to the drink-less, clothes to the clothes-less, hope to the hopeless, and homes to the homeless. However, this place is struggling with an infestation of materialistic, worldly minded, prideful, ungrateful, and lazy people who have turned their ears from their Lord and have allowed others to tickle their ears and their egos. These people call themselves Christians but there is nothing about their lives, behavior, or faith that resembles the Christ they claim to follow.
I do not desire to point the finger at others, but rather, I will be the first to admit that my view and my response to homelessness needs drastic reformation. In the neighborhood that I live in I'm only about a mile away from our city's largest concentration of homeless citizens. The opportunities abound. My neighborhood is literally an oasis amidst a community of homeless transients. Ironically, a mile away in the other direction is arguably one of the richest and most opulent neighborhoods in all of America: the Broadmoor. I go a mile north or east and I am surrounded by homelessness and I go a mile in the other directions and I am surrounded by mansions, million dollar estates, and a less known side of homelessness.
I do not venture into the Broadmoor area often, but rather, I frequently travel to the Walmart that falls almost in the center of this homeless community and my workplace, a human services non-profit that serves the homeless, impoverished, and addicted in our community. I am surrounded by homelessness and my job is to use my talents and skills to benefit a ministry that seeks to give the homeless a home. In the year and a half that I have worked at this ministry I have grown more and more ashamed of my Christian walk and that of 99% of the Christian and human population of Colorado Springs.
Our culture views homelessness as a plague and problem that is somebody else's problem. Our culture in America is up in arms about equal rights, fair treatment of minorities, and justice for every citizen. I watch the outcries on the news and see the social media protests of friends and family members every day. Civil rights, gay rights, women's rights and justice for the underdog. They protest outside the civil centers, they parade their rights down main street, and yet, none of these individuals or groups see the pain, frustration, abuse, and dehumanization of the homeless population of America. The homeless people are outside the civil centers every day and they parade down main street several times during the day asking for help and attention, and yet, nobody picks up their banner along with them.
Christians in this city, myself included, don't really know what to do when a homeless person approaches them and asks them for help. We're instantly skeptical of anyone asking us for money, we quickly discredit their story or need, and we find some excuse to escape their presence. On the other hand, some of us pride ourselves with our care and compassion for the poor by giving them some money and saying, "God bless you." Or perhaps we think we have outsmarted them by buying them a meal rather than giving them money for food or filling up their gas tank rather than giving them money for gas. All of these approaches, however, are not helpful responses to homelessness.
Maybe you think that I'm coming down too hard on Christians in my city and around the country. If so, then I challenge you with these questions:
Homeless people need a home. Homeless people need to know that they have a home. Homeless people need to know they have a family that loves them. Homeless people need to know that they have a Father that loves them despite their past sins and the past sins that were inflicted upon them. Homeless people need to know that there is a home waiting for them filled with people just like them that needed a place to call home. Homeless people need to know that the Christian Church is the perpetual home to the homeless. After all, the Church is Christ's home and those whom He welcomes into His family He will never forsake, cast out, or allow them to be homeless ever again for He sacrificed Himself to secure them within the household of God forever and forevermore.
Perhaps you are not a Christian and you find it offensive that I would say that the Christian Church ought to be the home for the homeless. However, the last time I checked, Christian ministries are the only ones seeking to care for the impoverished and homeless. Secular homeless shelters and ministries are near non-existent. As much as you despise Christians for their political views of equality, you ought to be completely heartbroken and ashamed that you fight for equal rights, justice, and freedom for every minority EXCEPT the homeless, arguably the most despised, mistreated, and dehumanized minority of them all. Sadly, if the secular agenda of this generation continues to make it harder and harder for Christian ministries to serve the homeless in this country with the Gospel (what the secular world refers to proselytizing) the worse and worse the problem of homelessness will grow. The secular world doesn't have an answer to the homeless soul looking for a home. They will throw money, food, clothes, and houses at them, not realizing that they need something money cannot buy, food cannot fulfill, clothes cannot cover, and houses cannot build: a place to call home.
I cannot tell you what you and I do from here. Like I said, I'm feeling more and more ashamed of my view of the homeless and my lack of a ministry to them. How do we care for and provide a home for the homeless? That should be the headline of newspapers tomorrow. That should be the overlay of every Facebook profile picture tomorrow. That should be the topic for tomorrow's prayer time. That should be the conversation around the dinner table tonight. That should be on the top of the church's priority list, but it will take more than me writing this and you reading this to change that. We actually have to put our faith to work. We actually have to take a risk, do something we don't know much about, and travel into uncharted territory. I can think of no better home for a homeless person than the church of Jesus Christ.
How will you make your church a home for the homeless?
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word? A drunkard? A panhandler? A swindler? A substance abuser? A lazy fool? An unkempt societal plague?
Many people have ill conceived, disappointing, and quiet honestly, sinful, perceptions of what it means to be homeless. The definition of what it means to be homeless is in the very word itself:
If you do not have a place to call home then you are homeless.
There is a difference between being houseless and homeless. A house is a physical structure. A house provides shelter from the cold, the rain, the snow, and the wind. A house can be opened up to welcome in family and friends or shut up to exclude criminals and enemies. A house can be built or torn down and then rebuilt because it is a physical place.
Over the past few years in Colorado, there have been several destructive forest fires and terrible thunderstorms that caused massive flooding. Thousands of people were displaced from their houses. The fires consumed hundreds of structures and the floods destroyed hundreds more. However, Colorado's homeless numbers didn't drastically surge during this period. Despite being houseless, many families still had a place to call home. Their home wasn't defined by the physical walls and roof that surrounded them but it was defined by the family unit's love for each other, their determination to overcome tragedy together, and their ability to draw closer to each other during this time of struggle, want, and reconstruction.
Their is a stark contrast between being homeless and houseless. By pointing it out to you I hope that I can maybe start to re-paint an ugly picture that your thoughtless and impressionable mind and heart have allowed our materialistic culture to create within you.
Let me start out with the background. The background is usually dark and bleak. The portrait of a homeless person typically starts off with a canvas of a much darker hue than most people's. The environment is filled with hostility and animosity. Parents that are physically and verbally abusive. Pedophiles and molesters. Drug dealers and gang members. Domestic violence and murder. This is no Bob Ross painting. There are no fluffy clouds or happy trees with their happy tree friends here. The landscape is desolate, destroyed, scorched, and devastated. The trees lie torched by firestorm after firestorm and the rocks that cover the landscape have a thick layer of soot on them.
Many homeless people don't have a home and they never have. Since they were young children they've never had a place to call home. They may or may not have grown up in a house or apartment, but this place wasn't home to them. For some it was a torture chamber and for others it was a dungeon. This place housed them, their few belongings, and their tormentors. They couldn't stand the place, and they knew that any other place in the world had to be better than their house. Many of them made a dangerous and sometimes a courageous decision to risk life on the streets rather than housed under the roof of their greatest enemy.
Other homeless people's backgrounds aren't as dark. They start off with a beautiful canvas covered with every color of the palette in every shape and shade. They grew up in a house, a beautiful home, surrounded by people that loved them, cherished them, and called them family. They were homeful. However, disaster struck. Something turned their homeful life upside down, inside out, and discombobulated it in every way. Rape, molestation, domestic violence, abuse, drugs, alcohol, human trafficking, infidelity, death of a loved one, tragedy, war, unemployment, or coming out to their family. Tragedy forcefully dismantled their emotional home. The family they loved was lost or disowned them. Their friends grew few and less supportive. They had no one to turn to. No one to trust. No one to believe. They had no one.
This is the portrait of homelessness. Notice that the portrait of the person doesn't matter at all. It is the background. It is the environment that defines homelessness. A homeless person never ceases being a person. Their portrait resembles yours and mine down to every blemish, wrinkle, hair, feature, and facet. There is nothing about their essence that separates them from you and me.
What might happen if a homeless person was given a place to call home? What if they had a place to go when they were scared, tired, or at their wits end and were welcomed home with arms wide open and accepted by a warm, firm embrace? Isn't that what most of us appreciate most about our home? Is it not the fact that no matter how hard our weekdays, workdays, schooldays, and holidays are we have somewhere we can be surrounded by the people we love, the people that love us and accept us for just who we are, both the good and the bad? That's home.
If you give a homeless person a house you have not cured what ails them. If you give a homeless person a twenty dollar bill you are not helping cure what plagues them. If you give a homeless person a meal from McDonald's you shouldn't pat yourself on the back for doing your good deed for the year because you haven't accomplished much of anything.
"'For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’"
(Matthew 25:42-45 ESV)
I know of a place that should be full of people that desire to give food to the food-less, drink to the drink-less, clothes to the clothes-less, hope to the hopeless, and homes to the homeless. However, this place is struggling with an infestation of materialistic, worldly minded, prideful, ungrateful, and lazy people who have turned their ears from their Lord and have allowed others to tickle their ears and their egos. These people call themselves Christians but there is nothing about their lives, behavior, or faith that resembles the Christ they claim to follow.
I do not desire to point the finger at others, but rather, I will be the first to admit that my view and my response to homelessness needs drastic reformation. In the neighborhood that I live in I'm only about a mile away from our city's largest concentration of homeless citizens. The opportunities abound. My neighborhood is literally an oasis amidst a community of homeless transients. Ironically, a mile away in the other direction is arguably one of the richest and most opulent neighborhoods in all of America: the Broadmoor. I go a mile north or east and I am surrounded by homelessness and I go a mile in the other directions and I am surrounded by mansions, million dollar estates, and a less known side of homelessness.
I do not venture into the Broadmoor area often, but rather, I frequently travel to the Walmart that falls almost in the center of this homeless community and my workplace, a human services non-profit that serves the homeless, impoverished, and addicted in our community. I am surrounded by homelessness and my job is to use my talents and skills to benefit a ministry that seeks to give the homeless a home. In the year and a half that I have worked at this ministry I have grown more and more ashamed of my Christian walk and that of 99% of the Christian and human population of Colorado Springs.
Our culture views homelessness as a plague and problem that is somebody else's problem. Our culture in America is up in arms about equal rights, fair treatment of minorities, and justice for every citizen. I watch the outcries on the news and see the social media protests of friends and family members every day. Civil rights, gay rights, women's rights and justice for the underdog. They protest outside the civil centers, they parade their rights down main street, and yet, none of these individuals or groups see the pain, frustration, abuse, and dehumanization of the homeless population of America. The homeless people are outside the civil centers every day and they parade down main street several times during the day asking for help and attention, and yet, nobody picks up their banner along with them.
Christians in this city, myself included, don't really know what to do when a homeless person approaches them and asks them for help. We're instantly skeptical of anyone asking us for money, we quickly discredit their story or need, and we find some excuse to escape their presence. On the other hand, some of us pride ourselves with our care and compassion for the poor by giving them some money and saying, "God bless you." Or perhaps we think we have outsmarted them by buying them a meal rather than giving them money for food or filling up their gas tank rather than giving them money for gas. All of these approaches, however, are not helpful responses to homelessness.
Maybe you think that I'm coming down too hard on Christians in my city and around the country. If so, then I challenge you with these questions:
- Does your church have a homeless ministry?
- Does your church support a local homeless ministry?
- How many people participate in this ministry?
- How often do you participate in this ministry?
- How much of your church's annual budget is ear marked for homeless ministry (either running one or supporting one)?
Homeless people need a home. Homeless people need to know that they have a home. Homeless people need to know they have a family that loves them. Homeless people need to know that they have a Father that loves them despite their past sins and the past sins that were inflicted upon them. Homeless people need to know that there is a home waiting for them filled with people just like them that needed a place to call home. Homeless people need to know that the Christian Church is the perpetual home to the homeless. After all, the Church is Christ's home and those whom He welcomes into His family He will never forsake, cast out, or allow them to be homeless ever again for He sacrificed Himself to secure them within the household of God forever and forevermore.
Perhaps you are not a Christian and you find it offensive that I would say that the Christian Church ought to be the home for the homeless. However, the last time I checked, Christian ministries are the only ones seeking to care for the impoverished and homeless. Secular homeless shelters and ministries are near non-existent. As much as you despise Christians for their political views of equality, you ought to be completely heartbroken and ashamed that you fight for equal rights, justice, and freedom for every minority EXCEPT the homeless, arguably the most despised, mistreated, and dehumanized minority of them all. Sadly, if the secular agenda of this generation continues to make it harder and harder for Christian ministries to serve the homeless in this country with the Gospel (what the secular world refers to proselytizing) the worse and worse the problem of homelessness will grow. The secular world doesn't have an answer to the homeless soul looking for a home. They will throw money, food, clothes, and houses at them, not realizing that they need something money cannot buy, food cannot fulfill, clothes cannot cover, and houses cannot build: a place to call home.
I cannot tell you what you and I do from here. Like I said, I'm feeling more and more ashamed of my view of the homeless and my lack of a ministry to them. How do we care for and provide a home for the homeless? That should be the headline of newspapers tomorrow. That should be the overlay of every Facebook profile picture tomorrow. That should be the topic for tomorrow's prayer time. That should be the conversation around the dinner table tonight. That should be on the top of the church's priority list, but it will take more than me writing this and you reading this to change that. We actually have to put our faith to work. We actually have to take a risk, do something we don't know much about, and travel into uncharted territory. I can think of no better home for a homeless person than the church of Jesus Christ.
How will you make your church a home for the homeless?
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Drowning
Lashing out in every direction, cursing the very air I breathe. Thrashing the air that surrounds me in a futile effort to keep it away from me. Enough! Enough! I have had my fill. I am drowning in this life. It is not the waters of the sea that fill my lungs, but rather, it is incessant air. Breath after breath, it fills me. I try to stop breathing but my will is not strong enough. Is it the body that betrays me by breathing or is it the breath of life that continually forces its way into me? It sustains me, and yet, I am tortured by it.
If tears were sweet would we not feast upon them and savor their every treat? However, tears are bitter and as unsavory as the waters that fill the oceans to the brim. To taste tears day and night is to drown in the ocean. Wave after wave pours over me. My diet consists of tears and sorrow. Tears, sorrow, and yet an immense hope. An undeniable hope.
I am drowning in a sea of sorrow, and I cannot go under. I have tried, but despite the waters flowing into my lungs, air pierces me deeply, forcing me to spit out the water. The air keeps me elevated over breaker after breaker. This is not perseverance. I have stopped kicking. I have tried letting go of hope, but it will not let go of me. This is preservation. I am being preserved by something far more powerful than my restless and downtrodden heart. It has stopped beating, but someone keeps pricking it back to life.
I looked around me, and I am not alone. There are many souls in this deluge of depression. The storm rages on and the waves secure victim after victim. To my left and to my right, I am surrounded on every side with people drowning. Some of them cry out horrifically for help. Their cries for help would haunt my dreams if only I had any to haunt. Others, however, battle to keep their head above water for a short while before they sink beneath the dark waters. They don't say a word. They slowly drift down into the abyss. They give up and something allows them to. However, I am yet sustained and preserved.
"Look at me."
There is a faint voice, but it sounds like it is too far in the distance to be of any help or hope. It speaks truth, I hear it clearly, but I know it must be far in the distance. There cannot be any hope in this ocean of turmoil. The voice is clear, crisp, powerful, and frightening. A cold chill travels over me, and yet a profound confidence and faith causes me to frantically search for the Words that I hear.
I kick and scream, and the more that I scream the more water enters into my lungs. The salt water stings as it forces its one into my mouth, down my throat, into my belly, into my essence, and I am tired of gagging up the putrid solution that stirs within me.
At times I begin to drift away. I slowly sink beneath the torrential rains and the hammering waves. It is peaceful beneath the waves, beneath the storm. It is quiet. There are no more screams for help. The raging, crashing, thunderous noise is muffled into a distant hum. It is here that I try to let go, but it is here that I am pricked with dissatisfaction and contempt with the idea of fading away. It is here that I am pushed back up to the surface and forced to once again drown.
Things were not always like this. I was once in the security of a ship that sailed upon these waters. Despite the raging of the storm, I had safety and security on the boat. The buoyancy of the vessel was not a sure hope, but it consistently elevated me above the waves. It required no faith or belief on my part to weather the storm. I knew the ship would only survive the waves for a time, that it could easily by crippled by the storm, that it would eventually sink below but it was much easier to cling to the boat than the undulating waves. The boat was solid. The boat was tangible. It was real.
And yet, I heard a voice call from the storm. "Come to me." It called for me, and I responded. Without knowing what in the world I was doing, I was climbing out of the ship into the storm. It made no sense to me, but I followed the calling voice. I took a few steps out of the ship and you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I was truly walking above the waves. The voice kept calling. "Come!" I heard the voice, I listened to the voice, and I trusted the voice. My confidence was not my own but solely in the one calling me. The storm raged on around me. The walk was turbulent. At moments I stood on the peaks of waves and at others I was standing in the midst of an immense trough. Nevertheless, I kept hearing the voice calling and I continued to obey.
However, I began to look around me and noticed that I was not walking out of the storm but into the heart of it. The waves were growing larger and they were crashing over me harder and harder. Although I was above the sea below, the waters still washed over me, disheartening me. I began to fear that I would not be able to stay above the waters for much longer. The more and more I began to lose confidence in my ability to follow the voice calling, I began to sink deeper and deeper into the frigid, turbulent grasp of death.
I panicked, and I was no longer suspended over the sea but drowning in it. I started swinging my arms frantically, kicking my legs unceasingly, and grasping for breath but to no avail. The waves felt more and more like hands trying to push me into the darkness beneath. I felt caught in an unnatural tug-of-war between the darkness below and the air above. It is not drowning that will kill you. You are dead when you stop drowning, when you stop gasping for breath, and when you have nothing left to breath but the salty waters that surround you. Drowning, on the other hand, is a losing battle as the waters below seek to keep the breath out of your lungs long enough for you to succumb to their will. My lungs filled with as much water as air, perhaps more water than air, but never enough to end the battle. I longed for the moment when the waves would subdue me once for all, but that moment was never realized.
I grew tired of drowning. I grew tired of resting on the cusp of life and death. I gave up and I gave in. I was tired of fighting. I was exhausted.
"Look at me."
The voice was very close this time. It sounded like it was right on top of me. I heard it clearly. I heard it as clearly as I hear my own thoughts. It was as if the voice resided and emanated from within me. I looked up, and there He was.
"Lord, save me"
Immediately, a hand reached out and plucked me up out of the water like a brand from the fire.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
(Psalm 42:11 ESV)
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
(Jude 1:17-23 ESV)
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