One time I was making my way across Canada alternating hopping freights and hitch hiking. I met a guy along the way and we were hitch-hiking through a rather remote area and we hadn’t eaten in two full days and were starving. We saw a closed down restaurant along the highway and decided to break in and look for some sort of food to quell our hunger pangs. We went around back and forced open a window and he crawled in and handed me out some old hamburger buns and then went looking for more. Suddenly I saw the front end of a highway patrol car slide up. I hissed, “Cops!” and then quick as a rabbit I hopped over a guard rail and ran into the wooded area before the policeman saw me.
As I watched from my vantage point I saw the cop walk up to the window and order my buddy out of the store and then arrest and cuff him. I was so hungry that I almost envied him knowing that he would get food in jail, but I was wanted for other crimes and could not afford to get caught. I was cramming the hamburger buns in my mouth and hungrily munching them as I watched my buddy being put in the police car from my vantage point in the woods. I waited there for some length of time before venturing back out on to the highway to continue hitch-hiking.
Being hungry is no fun.
We had an elder’s meeting at church not long ago and decided that we would provide a Thanksgiving meal to some very needy families in our community. We decided to give each family a turkey and all of the canned goods and provisions necessary to cook a thanksgiving feast to remember.
During the search for families and in talking with those welfare workers who knew them, we discovered that buying them turkeys was not a good idea, because most did not have a working oven. I asked how they cooked and she responded that most often they ate things like spaghetti-o’s right out of the can. We bought them cooked hams instead of turkeys.
I would imagine that they enjoyed yesterday’s feast, but what about next week? Some might think that they are getting what they deserve because they won’t work. There are few jobs for uneducated people and none available for small children and most of our poor fall into those categories. Right here in America kids go to bed hungry and wake up hungry day after day – Poverty stinks! These families need educations and they need jobs.
Where will they find help?
I believe the Bible is clear that the church, the body of believers, is to be at the forefront of helping the poor. Today the church is not big enough to handle all of our poor, but it certainly can do its share, provided that we will just commit to following the lead of Jesus.
So you say, “Right on” and toss five bucks into the offering plate.
Jesus said, “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind . . . ”
Huh?
Does that make you uncomfortable? Jesus made it clear that our treatment of the poor was identical to our treatment of Him. Mother Teresa once said, “In the poor, we find Jesus in distressing disguise.”
Though we cannot cure the world of all its ills we should do what we can through a compassionate ministry similar in nature to Christ’s.
What can you do today? Selah . . .
Have a great holiday weekend and go to Honey Lake Church this Sunday. We have internationally acclaimed speaker Os Hillman this weekend and you definitely don’t want to miss his stirring message.
Matthew 25:31
“Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did not do for me”
November 28, 2014 – Click here to listen