The Divine Crash

I love Chinese food.  Especially the local restaurant in town  it is just amazing food.  I also like when the food is spicy, really spicy.  However, my wife does not enjoy Chinese food, I only get to have it when I can talk her into it. Maybe 4 times a year.  Today is one of those times.

We all met for lunch today and had some wonderful Chinese food.  My son had an egg roll, the first thing he did was break it in half so he could eat it.  After eating the first half he dropped the second half on the floor, at which point he began to cry because he still wanted to eat it.

As much as I love egg rolls I decided to give him half of my egg roll.  He was so happy and he loved the egg roll.

I wonder if this is the idea of Christian service? I had more than I needed and my son suddenly didn’t have enough.

What if out of our excess we gave to those who didn’t have enough.

But what if it is more than that? As I type and I think I wonder, I really only had one egg roll for me.  I didn’t really have excess, I had enough for me.  So then what if out of sheer love I gave to those who didn’t have enough?

That works well when I am giving and egg roll to my son but what about the people around me that I see in need that I just don’t like? What about them?

It is easy to give an egg roll to my son.  I love him.  What about giving an egg roll to the homeless who lives outside the Chinese place? I’ve never met him, every time I talk to him he yells at me and he smells like cheap booze.  What do I do about him?

What do I do about him? Jesus says love your neighbors and this guy is my neighbor so how do I love him when I don’t even know him?

Is it love to simply throw some coins or a few dollars and keep on walking? Probably not.

Is it love to buy him lunch, ask him how his day was and then leave him be? Maybe.

Is it love to bring him to my house to dinner? Maybe, but is it safe? Should I even worry about my safety, what about my family’s safety?

Do I invite him to church and tell him I’ll be praying for him? That seems almost hypocritical because it doesn’t solve any of the man’s real problems.

Maybe the egg roll on the floor is the key.  I didn’t wonder if my son would make the same mistake and drop it on the floor again, I didn’t wonder if he would like it,  and I didn’t wonder how he would pay me back in the future.  I simply gave it to him because I love him.

So then,  If we are going to say Jesus is our savior and Jesus is the Lord of our life then everything we do is because of him then when we see someone in need and we can help then we are not helping them we are serving our Lord, the one we love.

I’m still not sure the best way to help the homeless man who is my neighbor but whatever it is I can’t do it just because he is homeless or just because it is the right thing to do I do it because I love Jesus.

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Family by RevBT