I'm realizing that I'm a little stingy with love, a little stingy when it comes to sharing, and a little stingy with Christ when I'm out in public. When I see the cardboard signs and pretend to adjust my car radio (the beggar), when I'm greeted outside Wal-Mart by the veterans collecting donations and (the needy), when I give an outdated can of tomato sauce at the canned food drive (the hungry) instead of a boxful of inexpensive but nourishing food, I'm being stingy. My tendency is to see the man begging and then begin to flowchart: if I give him money it will either A) be spent on alcohol or B) won't make much difference. If it DOES make a little difference then it will A) only encourage him to beg more and/or B) discourage him from actually getting a job.
All of these gyrations my mind goes through instead of simply extending the hand of Christ with no further expectation.
In Marks of the Messenger, J. Mack Stiles says that "We [should] care for others regardless of any return for our efforts - evangelistically or otherwise. We never qualify whom it is we are to love . . . We share the good news always open to doing good, and we do good always with the hope of sharing our faith. We never divorce the two. If we get nothing in return, it's okay because it is the nature of love."
This is actually kind of liberating for me - instead of doing all the heavy calculating in order to avoid reaching out, I just need to reach.
4 comments:
just heard nearly the same thing today, listening to tim keller's "ministries of mercy" as he was discussing our trying to discern the "deserving poor" in our giving while comparing that to how "deserving" we were of Christ's mercy.
i've tried to start giving grocery store gift cards instead of cash (though my radio still needs adjusting too frequently, it seems)...a potential problem in NH, however, is that one can buy booze at wal-mart, so i may have to rethink that strategy in some fashion.
http://www.monergismbooks.com/Ministries-of-Mercy-The-Call-of-the-Jericho-Road-p-17007.html
Grocery cards! That's a really good idea. And frankly, demonstrates more purposeful action than handing somebody a five or ten out the car window, in that you actually have to purchase the card with giving in mind.
i just listened to a chapter in that book last night that dealt more comprehensively with this topic - when do you give/when do you stop? not sure a quick summary would do it justice, but he was talking about our mercy should be what limits our mercy, not our sense of justice, not our sense of frustration, our impatience, etc. if giving to someone is making them grow further from entering the kingdom/serving the King, then it is merciful to stop giving. we should initially be oriented toward giving without condition (as Christ gave to us), but it is wisdom and stewardship to eventually have some strategies to be moving people forward and to positions of less dependence where possible. conservatives/liberals each tend to err by either being too quick with the conditions or by never imposing them at all.
many other pearls in this book...not even half-way thru, but enjoying it and definitely being challenged by it...
Hmm that's good wisdom. I recognize that in our thinking here at church...no shortage of folks wanting/needing benevolence. We'd like to help people with their light bill, but also teach them how to budget, bring them into our community of faith and help them grow. There's a definite generational poverty at work that keeps people basically trapped.
Post a Comment