I was in downtown Little Rock last week. It was dark but still about 90 degrees and humid. Across the river was a stadium full of people watching a minor league baseball game and the highway behind us was full of people on their way...somewhere.
There were 7 of us downtown that night. We were outsiders. This was not our home, this was not where we "belonged." We came with cold water, some apples and a few pairs of shoes. It was the least we could do...literally, the least we could do. We took a couple hours out of our night to go spend some time with people who don't get a lot of personal attention.
Two of us decided to go see if we could find anyone else who might want a bottle of cold water while the rest of the group spent time talking to those few people who we found right when we arrived. On the walk I was talking to my friend. He was telling me about his time working for a homeless shelter. He spent over 3 years living and working in a homeless shelter. He wasn't getting paid, he had no other home, he had no other mode of transportation besides the vehicles that the shelter owned. He had volunteered to be homeless. That is not something that many people will do. He was explaining to me that he was just as homeless as anyone who stayed in his shelter while he was there. The thing of it is, he was no less of a man when he was there than he was right now. He has a home, he has a car, he has a job that pays him. Yet when he had none of those things, he was still the same man.
Earlier in the night he had said that people tie their worth to their possessions. Both Christians and non-Christians do the same thing. If we lose their "stuff" then WE are no longer worth as much. You can see it in how we talk about the poor and the homeless. You can see it in the way we treat the guy who comes up to us at Starbucks and asks for a couple dollars because his car is out of gas. We don't look at them as equals. They are now sub-standard humans and we don't have to pay them the same respect as other people.
If we would take a look at ourselves and be honest with ourselves we would realize that it wouldn't take much to put us in a situation where we needed someones help. We may have plenty right now, but that doesn't mean we will always have plenty. The Bible says, "He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord." (Prov. 19:17) If you aren't a Christian then living by what the Bible says doesn't matter to you. Just remember that there will be a day when you need a hand up, someone will have to come to help you. That won't make you less of a man/woman...it will just make you human.
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." -Jesus
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