I haven’t posted in a while. I started a new job back in June and it has been very challenging and has taken a lot of my time. I really love this job. I feel like I’m right where God wants me to be and that is good.
I work at a homeless services organization – basically, a homeless shelter. Last year, this organization served over 19,000 individuals. There are a lot of broken and lost people out there. I am one of them…
The interesting thing about working for a homeless shelter is telling people what I do. Typically, the first reaction is to say something about how wonderful it is – how noble to work for a place that helps the less fortunate, the needy. However, if they ask enough questions, most people become somewhat angry at the people we serve.
I think for those of us who have never really been in want or need of much of anything in our life, we struggle to relate to those who have. We say how lucky we are, how blessed we’ve been, etc. but we really don’t know what it’s like to identify with those who are in poverty and suffer. Most of us want to help those in need. We feel good about ourselves when we do that. However, most of us don’t really think much about the need that those in poverty have – what caused them to fall into poverty in the first place.
For most people we serve, the cause of their trials in life have been largely self-made. Very rarely do we encounter someone who had a great house, a car, all the things they needed and then had an innocent trial – like losing a job, that caused them to spiral into poverty. Most middle class or working class families and individuals have a support network of some kind they can rely on. If they were to lose their house and car to foreclosure and inability to make payments because of a loss of job, they could likely move in with family or friends temporarily until they get back on their feet. Nine times out of ten, these types of individuals do not end up at homeless shelters.
So, who does? It tends to be people who, for whatever reason, do not make good decisions, spend their time with those who don’t make good decisions and who have no other places to turn other than shelter. Maybe they grew up in an abusive and chaotic home. Maybe they never knew their father and were watched as a kid by a combination of whoever was around because their mother was out a lot and would disappear for days. Maybe they lived in complete filth in an apartment that was operated by a slum lord, or worse, they were squatting in a condemned house that was being shared by several other groups of people, including drug dealers and pimps.
Then, they reach that magic age of 18 and they are an adult. And we as society suddenly expect them to make good decisions and do good things with their life now that they are an adult and they “know better”. Can you imagine growing up in complete chaos and disarray, never seeing productive and loving behavior modeled and suddenly, you’re expected to do the right thing and know right from wrong?
So, these individuals start making what we would say are “bad decisions”. They let their cousin couch surf for a few months, even though he’s a drug dealer and slings crack off the front porch of the house. But, he helps pay the bills and they have a drinking habit that needs funded and so they let it slide. That then gets them in trouble with the landlord who kicks them out. Then they move in with a friend down the street in a crowded drug house and find out they’re about to have their second child. And they got arrested again for breaking & entering. You get the idea.
The thing is, I think Jesus sends us people in poverty to help us learn about His grace.
So many of us judge those in poverty. We say, if they just get a job and pull themselves together, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
However, we’re in a mess. Ours might not look like those in poverty. We might live in a beautiful middle class sub-division in a neighborhood of others who are professionals of some kind. We all drive our nice cars and have beautiful, well adjusted children. But, we’re still living in sin. We all are. None of us are without sin. And our sin makes us lost and messy. Our sin may be more “socially acceptable”. It may be that we’re telling some white lies to our boss about whose idea that new campaign really was because we’re in line for a promotion and a little white lie never hurt anyone. Maybe we’re struggling with jealousy – we see our neighbors with a new (fill in the blank) and we want one too. Maybe we’re addicted to something society has deemed as “good” – like work, or getting the next big achievement. Or maybe we struggle with idolatry of something we could never imagine being an idol – like our children or our bodies or success.
When I look at the people we serve where I work, I see myself. No, I haven’t slung crack off my porch or brought children into the world I had no means to take care of. However, I am still as lost and sinful as those people are. My sin just looks different than theirs.
The thing is, I’ve been struggling for my whole life with eating issues. I’ve prayed for God to take them away more than I’ve prayed for anything else. I know God has heard my prayers. He leaves this thorn in my side. The other day, God whispered to my heart “See how your eating issues help you identify with those you serve at work?” I was stopped in my tracks. One of, perhaps, many reasons God has allowed this thorn to persist was so I could look at those who “don’t make good decisions” and end up in a homeless shelter with complete compassion. I know they made their way to our door through sin. But, so did I. Our sins just look different.
I completely identify with those who lose job after job and apartment after apartment because of a drug and/or alcohol addiction, but they still can’t stop using. I struggle to stop over-eating. No, eating doesn’t cause me to lose my job or the place where I live, but it’s still sin and it does have consequences. Both in this world and with God.
God calls us to help those in poverty, but He does not distinguish between those who fall into poverty for innocent reasons and those who get there through sin. We’re called to help them all. That makes a lot of us middle class, hard working, red-blooded American selves very uncomfortable. But I worked HARD for what I have – why should I help those who are lazy and don’t have a job? But I EARNED that house/ car/ second house/ vacation/ wealth – why should I sacrifice some of it to give to someone who makes bad decisions and ends up in poverty?
GRACE.
Jesus died for us and paid the price for something we could never pay for on our own. We didn’t earn it, we don’t deserve it. When we extend compassion, love and our sacrificed things to those in need (whatever their need may be), we’re using what God has given us that we don’t deserve and we’re giving it to another one of His children who doesn’t deserve it.
And my eating issues and promptings from the Holy Spirit helped me realize this. There is a reason for my eating issues. God is using them for His glory. I now know a little more about what Paul said when he wrote “when I am weak, then I am strong”.
I am very weak. God is very strong. I’m more than humbled and blessed to be walking in His spirit and helping those in poverty. Because I’m in poverty too. Just a different kind.