Be a Hope-Bringer

Here’s one of the questions I am really wrestling with: How do I care for the least of these? I believe God defines this group broadly. It would include physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. These needs are all around us if we are willing to enter into people’s lives. I get that and still have a long ways to go in living into that, but where I am specifically struggling has to do with the physical needs question.

I look around my life here in Charlevoix, MI, and don’t see a whole lot of physical needs. We have our share of food pantries and resale shops. There are definitely people struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol. And there are some that are definitely struggling paying their bills. But there is a difference between physical needs here and the physical needs there - there being in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and in some locations in Central and South America and Asia.

I went to Kenya and experienced some things I will never forget.

I saw kids living on the streets – no Moms or Dads - kids as young as my son. He’s 5.
I had a young girl offer me her baby. She wanted me to take it.
I had a young man ask me to take him off the street. He’d been there over 8 years.
I walked through a couple slums and saw kids playing in the filth and stench.
I heard Sabina’s story – a young girl who was gang-raped and became pregnant.
I heard Cindy’s story – a mother of two who chose to give her boys to an orphanage because she was dying of AIDS.

I encountered suffering. I saw things that didn’t make sense at all. Where is God? How could he possibly allow these horrific things to take place? I was emotionally and spiritually overwhelmed and some of that continues. I haven’t been completely dulled and numbed by being home – away from this. But some numbing and dulling has taken place. It makes it easier, but I definitely don’t think it’s better.

We just can’t ignore these needs and call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. We just can’t.

God hasn’t called you or me to fix these problems. We can’t. But he does call us to be part of the solution. In fact, solution is the wrong word. It’s compassion. When we see the truth of what some people experience in this world, we can’t just turn away. It’s like the Levite and the priest who saw the man alongside the road and passed by. We can’t pass by.

“Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Bob Pierce

We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges. Read that sentence again and this time read it through the lens of your Biblical knowledge. Remember the stories of men and women who acted on God’s behalf. Think Moses, Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Peter, etc.

We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges.

Too often, we do.

“What can I do about the AIDS pandemic?” “How can I help the orphans who are thousands of miles away from me?” “What can I possibly do about injustice?” “I don’t know how to help people still in slavery around this world.”

Those are outstanding questions. They are worth asking. But where we get paralyzed is when we ask them on our own. We think we can actually answer each of these questions for ourselves. But we can’t. We don’t know. We may be tempted to send a check to some reputable organization that helps some of these people in need, but as much as that might calm our conscience for a while, it does not address these questions appropriately, because it continues to address them on our own. We do something. We feel better. We can go back to our normal lives. I did my act of charity – God is now happy with me – I get extra credit.

Here is what I’m learning. Only God can answer those questions for me. The problem is I haven’t been asking. The problem is I’ve gotten caught up on my life and my routine and my plans and my agendas and so I’ve stopped asking – I’ve stopped caring.

When we get so lost in ourselves, we lose perspective don’t we? All of a sudden the color of my car really matters. If my sports team isn’t doing well, I am emotionally affected. I find myself caring a ton what others think of me even though I don’t really respect them. I want what I want and I deserve it. Whoa. How did I get to this place? A place where selfishness reigns and I actually believe others exist to serve me? Sin. That’s what it is. That’s what keeps bringing me to this place. I am separated from God. I no longer rest in his arms. I live for me, by my power, with me as the focus of my worship. No wonder I don’t care about those who suffer. I don’t even think about them – there is no space to because I’m filled up with me.

You cannot serve two masters. You just can’t.

If sins reigns, it reigns in my perspective of others, God, and me. I see God as my holy Santa Claus, people as my servants, and me as the King. Now I know we have trouble thinking we’d ever say this out loud, but it is definitely how I sometimes live.

What could the poor people of the world who just want my money – what could they possibly do for me? They just want stuff from me. If my perspective is sin, I can see absolutely no reason how they fit into my plans. They are completely off my radar screen. I won’t even ask the questions above. Why would I? They have nothing to do with me. They just get in the way of my plans – keep me from fulfilling my wants.

Back to God’s true part in my life. When he’s king, I’m not. When he’s king, then I began to realize that life in his kingdom is very different than life in mine. If I look to him as king, then the questions above become priority and the questions above are looked at through the eyes of humility. I can’t answer them. I am not in control. It is not up to me to figure this out, because I know I can’t. If I really see people the way God does, then I will long for them to experience his love and I will remember that Jesus says that when we care for those in need, we see Jesus. No, that’s not a typo. Jesus is in disguise among the people in need. Poor people. Hungry people. Broken people. Oppressed people. Discarded people. Displaced people. Unwanted people. His people. He’s there. And boy do we need to find him. Boy do I need to find him.

It’s an interesting theological question. Jesus is everywhere, right? Jesus is always with us. But yet, in this interesting text in Matthew 25, we see Jesus say he is there among the hungry, sick, naked, prisoners in a unique yet real way. When we care for the least of these, we meet Jesus.

And what is maybe the most challenging part of this call is what it does for us. We need to care for the least of these because of what Jesus does when we meet him in this way. He transforms us.

When we sit in our comfortable homes, leading our comfortable lives, Jesus is definitely there with us. But because of our unwillingness to step into the messiness of this world, we are not transformed in the ways God desires to transform us but more than likely are being “conformed to the pattern of this world.” (Rom. 12:2)

Mother Teresa said something that just haunts me.

“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

The decisions I make to live the lifestyle I live leads to children dying? Is that really true? Because I choose to live the way I live and not give the way I’m called, children die? Isn’t that a little over the top? Is it?

Worth pondering for a moment. Worth even asking God if this is true. Worth not reading on and just ignoring what she said. Worth really engaging with God if it is true a child could live if I would give. Ask him.

If it was your child who was hungry or being abused or alone, what would you want people to do who had the power to do something? How would you feel if you knew that across the ocean lived a bunch of people, even those who claimed to follow the same Jesus as you do, who spend more on cosmetics and garbage bags than on helping brothers and sisters in Christ in need? Really, how would you feel?

We can do something. What we can’t do is nothing. Indifference is sin.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.

The worst sin towards fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King Jr.

When is the last time you asked God for help in knowing how to care for the least of these? Now before you start the progression of beating yourself up because you haven’t for a long time, pray now. Instead of letting a voice inside of your head that is not God’s take you down the path of guilt and shame, let God’s voice direct your path which is always toward hope – not only hope for you to live into this call, but hope for those who have begun to lose hope.

You can bring hope. And that is exactly the role God has called every single one of us to embrace – bringing hope. Being a hope bringer.

You see, when you come into the presence of God, he will change you. He doesn’t want acts of charity to alleviate guilt. That is self-centered. He wants hearts that so reflect his that compassion pours out when we see people – especially when we see people who suffer, who experience injustice, who have lost hope. As C.S. Lewis said, we are called to become little Christs – people who have been so influenced by our time with Him, that we speak, act, think, and love like him.

If we’re not seeing Jesus, we’re not becoming like him. We are not transformed by intellectual efforts, by having the right thoughts, or by living by our self-determined lists. We are transformed when we live in his presence. When we let him touch our lives, change our hearts, as we follow him. Then we’ll end up where we need to be and we’ll become who he longs for us to become.

As we bring hope, we find hope. As we see joy, we experience it. As we love, we are loved. As we give, we receive. It is the irony of the gospel. It is the way of Jesus.

It’s funny how much I want to tell you what to do. In fact, I actually see it as part of my own defense mechanism for not doing anything myself. At least I told you what to do. I’ll give some suggestions at the end, but I’m not telling you what to do. God will. Talk to him. Let him speak through the passions and experiences of your life. There are people in need who you have been designed to help. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where and when. I know he does. Let’s ask.

One thing I believe we all need to do is become more aware. We need to look for information and help in understanding the truths of what is taking place around the world and in our communities. We need to ask questions and pursue accurate information. And I hope more than anything else, it leads us to face-to-face encounters with people in need, so we can see Jesus and hear what he wants to tell us. And so he can break our hearts. Heart-breaking is good and necessary because our hearts have become calloused and hardened. Only Jesus can soften our heart, so we need to go where he does this work.

Go to www.who.int. (World Health Organization) Click on health topics – pick one that grabs your attention. Each of them has a statistics page. Read. Click on countries. Pick one that grabs your attention. Read. Then pray for this issue – pray for the people affected – pray for the people trying to help – listen to the Holy Spirit’s nudgings (or not). Is he asking you to do more here? Keep clicking. Keep asking. Keep praying.

Do a web search on an issue that peaks your interest. Instead of shopping or checking out the latest scores, take fifteen minutes and seek out information on poverty, malnutrition, AIDS, water challenges, slavery, needs of children, the sex trade industry, orphans, etc. It isn’t entertaining, that’s for sure, but it is a much better use of this vast resource of information. Go to www.one.org and help make poverty history.

Often it is awareness that is the key to helping us know how to act. It is awareness that helps us be more in tune to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. It is often when we are confronted with suffering, we realize we can’t just turn away. We must act.