A few weeks ago, I spent a week in Nepal with my wife and with a friend of ours. It's my second time there, and we had quite an adventure this time trekking through mountains and forests. We got lost more than a few times, had to spend one night with a local Nepali family because we didn't make it to our destination, and I got food poisoning. However, that's a story for another time.
One day, while we were walking through the capital, Kathmandu, we
stumbled across a poor woman with a baby who was begging. She said they
wanted milk for their baby in her broken English. My first, rather
cynical, instinct was to ignore this person and keep keep walking around
the city. However, our friend had a different attitude. She decided
to help this person. She went into one of the grocery stores with her
and got her a pretty good supply of dry milk, which costs about 10
dollars. It was a bit expensive for Nepali standards, but she gave it
to her.
Should she have given the milk to her? The little lawyer in my brain comes up with all kinds of excuses why she shouldn't have. That lady might not have even used the milk for the baby. Perhaps she sold it back to the store or someone else later or traded it in for drugs. If she gave something like that to every single beggar, she would be absolutely broke. Wasn't she enabling her by keeping her trapped in a cycle of begging instead of looking for honest work.
Yet, for all these defenses my brain set up, I knew in my soul that
she did the right thing and she glorified God by helping this woman.
I'm not saying that those aren't important things to think about,
because they are, and we need to walk in wisdom as Christians. At the same time, the Bible doesn't ask us to give only when it's the
best, most utilitarian of causes, and only to those who really deserve
it. The bible just says to help the poor and those in need. By all
accounts, this woman certainly looked and seemed poor and in need. I
believe my friend will be rewarded in heaven and will be blessed in this
life by her act of kindness, regardless of how the woman used the
powdered milk.
Even if the woman used the money to buy drugs and it made her more dependent on the help of others, that is between her and God. Not all the people that Jesus healed ended up glorifying Him. Perhaps some of the people who had food from the miracles of the loaves and fishes sold the food or did something evil after they were satisfied. Even Jesus' disciple, Judas, ended up stealing from the money collected for ministry. Should Jesus not have helped these people? He should have and he did, because He was showing kindness to people regardless of their response to it. In the same way, my friend was being the hands and feet of Jesus by helping this woman. If she had over-thought it or began cross-examining if this was the right thing to do, she might have never done it.
I think this is one way we can glorify God while traveling. There is
a lot of abject poverty we see when we travel internationally,
that is often be beyond what we see in our home or resident
countries. It's one thing to intellectually and statistically know
about poverty, but it's completely another to see it for yourself. I
think even just seeing all the poverty in Kathmandu made me more
grateful to God for all He has given me, and seeing my friend give
helped me to enlarge my heart toward the poor, regardless of their
situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment