We are all confronted on a daily basis by people who are in difficult, trying, and at the extreme end of the equation desperate circumstances. We are barraged in media sources of all sorts and types and even more personal please for aid multiple times each and every day. Everything from images of starving people in far flung places across the globe to please to help people here at home to providing assistance to charities that do excellent work and everything in between. Even after doing all the due diligence in the world in terms of research, the equation still ends up with more need than resources.
And so I, like many others, are confronted with the thorny question, "How do I decide where to put my resources?" My resources in this arena are very finite. And so struggle with do I put all my resources into a single charity like the United Way or the Red Cross? Do I split up my efforts between causes and suffer from that depressing feeling that I am spreading things too thin? Do I focus on working exclusively through organizations, churches, and charities because of a personal lack of expertise? How do I respond to the people I run into in my everyday life then? Do I send them to the charities I support? In doing that am I being stubborn and non-cooperative with God?
The truth is that I struggle with questions daily. The truth is that I am rarely of one mind in an audience of one on this subject. The truth is that I just don't know at any given time what the right course is here.
Like most people, I try to let me faith and my conscience be my guide. I know I am accountable for truth as it has been revealed to me and as I understand it. I know I am, like the rest of humanity, an imperfect vessel. And I know that no decision made in a single moment can be a law for all actions and interactions on that subject.
And yet I understand, that my faith teaches a bias in favor of acting and not holding back. Accepting that as truth, how best to put shoes on that is the question I am confronted with more often than not. How do I discern the correct choices? How do I know that I've made a good choice or a bad one. What yardstick do I use to measure results? Do I apply a yardstick at all? If I don't why shouldn't I? Thorns, thorns, thorns even when I guided with the best of intentions.
My most reliable guide is an event that happened to me decades ago. I was a struggling college student trying to make college work, pay the bills, and still be able live and survive largely on my own with work study as my single source of income. And $3.35 an hour didn't go any further then than minimum wage does today.
At one point I was sitting in the common area in the multi-purpose building of the college with two things in my hands. One was a bill for college that was huge, (from my perspective at the time) and the other was my check for work study. The latter was nowhere near enough to pay the former. Time has erased the exact amounts from my memory. I had no idea how to make it work. I found myself at the wall without the resources to climb it.
At this point, a person sat down next to me. I knew of him, but we didn't really know each other. I will call him Bob, though let me assure that is not his name. He asked me what was wrong. I was tempted to say 'nothing' in that stubborn way I have. For whatever reason though I didn't. I shared it all with Bob. It came out of me in a fearful despair filled torrent. And to this day, I don't know why I did. I shared that I was just trying to fulfill the call God placed on my life, but circumstances were getting in the way.
Bob listened to it all. He didn't run screaming from me, like I thought any sane person should in that moment. He calmed me down. He told me to have faith, that things always work out when God is involved. I had a hard time focusing on anything other than the net facts in front of me. I knew you couldn't get blood from a turnip. I knew a net shortfall of this kind could not be solved with platitudes. I knew hard choices and hard times were ahead of me.
He told me not go anywhere and he would be right back. He was true to his word. He came back and he brought with him the funds to pay a large share of the college bill and when my work study check was cashed I had enough to complete paying the bill and have enough money left over to get me through until the next work study check came. He just gave it to me no strings attached. He told me to do what was right with it. He firmly told me view it as a gift and not try to pay him back. He just told me find a way in the future to pay this forward. His last admonition was not to tell anyone that he did this or use his name in connection with it, if I did.
This was the late 1980's and I had never heard the phrase about paying it forward before. I did follow his requests to the letter. I did what was right. I did not try to pay him back, though more than once I serious thought about it. Bob and I never spoke of that moment ever again.
That wasn't the only tough moment I had during that year. It was the most trying though. I seriously debated packing up that day before I ran into Bob that day. The trouble was my lack of mobility. I didn't have anywhere to go either.
I remember this overwhelming relief that I was able to exit the land of despair stage left. I also remember not understanding to pay it forward at the time. My life had been so hand to mouth that having the means to meet all my needs and have anything left over was an anathema to me.
It was only years later that I was able to understand what he meant. The chance to give a cup of water in service to my fellow man, because once my fellow man gave one to me is a gift that is precious beyond description to me. Having someone be grace and mercy to me asking only that I go and do likewise someday was a powerful example.
I haven't always been able to live up to Bob's admonitions to me. The fallen heart with it's cynicism and sarcasm make it difficult. And memory is a short thing. It is easy to forget grace and mercy imparted to us. It is easy to think all that we are is the fruit of our labor, even when it is so rarely the case.
So here is what I do now... I tend to help people as directly as I can. In large measure, because that was Bob's example. I give to some charitable organizations and my church. Largely because I think Jesus would say I should do the former without ignoring the latter. I am not perfect. I fail more often I succeed, but at least I am trying.
I do believe it is in the struggle with this issue that we are defined. Not in the way you might think. The definition is that we are struggling to live up to the sense of grace and mercy as we understand it. The struggle is a sign of a heart that is alive and a conscience that is wrestling with the issue. That I believe is all we can reasonably ask of ourselves.
Anything more is asking too much of our finite minds and temporal bodies. If we just seek to do only what the truth we understand and our circumstances provide for, we are at least in the right ballpark. As time passes, truth will guide us more effectively. As time passes and our hair goes from brown to gray to white to gone if we continue to struggle our hearts will redeem the admonition to be the hands and feet of the gospel.
And so I, like many others, are confronted with the thorny question, "How do I decide where to put my resources?" My resources in this arena are very finite. And so struggle with do I put all my resources into a single charity like the United Way or the Red Cross? Do I split up my efforts between causes and suffer from that depressing feeling that I am spreading things too thin? Do I focus on working exclusively through organizations, churches, and charities because of a personal lack of expertise? How do I respond to the people I run into in my everyday life then? Do I send them to the charities I support? In doing that am I being stubborn and non-cooperative with God?
The truth is that I struggle with questions daily. The truth is that I am rarely of one mind in an audience of one on this subject. The truth is that I just don't know at any given time what the right course is here.
Like most people, I try to let me faith and my conscience be my guide. I know I am accountable for truth as it has been revealed to me and as I understand it. I know I am, like the rest of humanity, an imperfect vessel. And I know that no decision made in a single moment can be a law for all actions and interactions on that subject.
And yet I understand, that my faith teaches a bias in favor of acting and not holding back. Accepting that as truth, how best to put shoes on that is the question I am confronted with more often than not. How do I discern the correct choices? How do I know that I've made a good choice or a bad one. What yardstick do I use to measure results? Do I apply a yardstick at all? If I don't why shouldn't I? Thorns, thorns, thorns even when I guided with the best of intentions.
My most reliable guide is an event that happened to me decades ago. I was a struggling college student trying to make college work, pay the bills, and still be able live and survive largely on my own with work study as my single source of income. And $3.35 an hour didn't go any further then than minimum wage does today.
At one point I was sitting in the common area in the multi-purpose building of the college with two things in my hands. One was a bill for college that was huge, (from my perspective at the time) and the other was my check for work study. The latter was nowhere near enough to pay the former. Time has erased the exact amounts from my memory. I had no idea how to make it work. I found myself at the wall without the resources to climb it.
At this point, a person sat down next to me. I knew of him, but we didn't really know each other. I will call him Bob, though let me assure that is not his name. He asked me what was wrong. I was tempted to say 'nothing' in that stubborn way I have. For whatever reason though I didn't. I shared it all with Bob. It came out of me in a fearful despair filled torrent. And to this day, I don't know why I did. I shared that I was just trying to fulfill the call God placed on my life, but circumstances were getting in the way.
Bob listened to it all. He didn't run screaming from me, like I thought any sane person should in that moment. He calmed me down. He told me to have faith, that things always work out when God is involved. I had a hard time focusing on anything other than the net facts in front of me. I knew you couldn't get blood from a turnip. I knew a net shortfall of this kind could not be solved with platitudes. I knew hard choices and hard times were ahead of me.
He told me not go anywhere and he would be right back. He was true to his word. He came back and he brought with him the funds to pay a large share of the college bill and when my work study check was cashed I had enough to complete paying the bill and have enough money left over to get me through until the next work study check came. He just gave it to me no strings attached. He told me to do what was right with it. He firmly told me view it as a gift and not try to pay him back. He just told me find a way in the future to pay this forward. His last admonition was not to tell anyone that he did this or use his name in connection with it, if I did.
This was the late 1980's and I had never heard the phrase about paying it forward before. I did follow his requests to the letter. I did what was right. I did not try to pay him back, though more than once I serious thought about it. Bob and I never spoke of that moment ever again.
That wasn't the only tough moment I had during that year. It was the most trying though. I seriously debated packing up that day before I ran into Bob that day. The trouble was my lack of mobility. I didn't have anywhere to go either.
I remember this overwhelming relief that I was able to exit the land of despair stage left. I also remember not understanding to pay it forward at the time. My life had been so hand to mouth that having the means to meet all my needs and have anything left over was an anathema to me.
It was only years later that I was able to understand what he meant. The chance to give a cup of water in service to my fellow man, because once my fellow man gave one to me is a gift that is precious beyond description to me. Having someone be grace and mercy to me asking only that I go and do likewise someday was a powerful example.
I haven't always been able to live up to Bob's admonitions to me. The fallen heart with it's cynicism and sarcasm make it difficult. And memory is a short thing. It is easy to forget grace and mercy imparted to us. It is easy to think all that we are is the fruit of our labor, even when it is so rarely the case.
So here is what I do now... I tend to help people as directly as I can. In large measure, because that was Bob's example. I give to some charitable organizations and my church. Largely because I think Jesus would say I should do the former without ignoring the latter. I am not perfect. I fail more often I succeed, but at least I am trying.
I do believe it is in the struggle with this issue that we are defined. Not in the way you might think. The definition is that we are struggling to live up to the sense of grace and mercy as we understand it. The struggle is a sign of a heart that is alive and a conscience that is wrestling with the issue. That I believe is all we can reasonably ask of ourselves.
Anything more is asking too much of our finite minds and temporal bodies. If we just seek to do only what the truth we understand and our circumstances provide for, we are at least in the right ballpark. As time passes, truth will guide us more effectively. As time passes and our hair goes from brown to gray to white to gone if we continue to struggle our hearts will redeem the admonition to be the hands and feet of the gospel.
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