Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Deuteronomy 14-15

I grew up in a poor neighborhood on the east side of Des Moines, Iowa, walking distance from the state capitol building, but I was blessed to be accepted into the open enrollment program for the wealthy school on the other side of town. Surrounded by Guess jeans, Izod shirts and BMWs, I felt poor in my sister’s hand-me-downs, white Kmart tennis shoes and beat-up station wagon.

But, here’s the truth: I wasn’t poor. I had everything that I needed. In fact, I had much, much more than I needed.

Both of my parents worked hard to provide a comfortable, stable life for us, a life full of delicious homemade dinners together at home, as well as occasional fancy meals out. When I was little, and my parents couldn’t afford lavish vacations, they took us camping, loading up that old blue station wagon with two little girls, a dog, a tent, four sleeping bags, and plenty of food and fishing gear. As my parents made more money, they chose to spend it exposing us to the adventures of traveling to the Bahamas, the ancient Giant Redwoods of California, and the historic cities of the East Coast.

I’ve been a homemaker and homeschooler for twenty-one years now. To make a little extra money, my husband, kids, and I started a portable laser tag business on the weekends. After almost ten years in business, we sold it, and I started teaching English online in the early morning hours while my kids sleep.

Sure, we could give our kids more stuff and a fancier house if I worked full-time, but I believe that being home to disciple my kids is immeasurably more valuable than expensive clothes, vacations, and all the various trappings of the world.

Truly, Americans today have a hard time grasping what it means to be poor. We think we’re poor if we can’t afford cable TV and Six Flags season passes. We think we’re poor if we can’t afford to vacation in Florida and buy Starbucks every morning. We think we’re poor if we don’t have a closet full of name brand clothes and sneakers.

So, I admit it’s hard for me to know how to help the needy and poor like we read about in Deuteronomy 15:11.

For there will never cease
to be poor in the land.
Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Deuteronomy 15:11 ESV

Well, two days ago, on Saturday afternoon, I went to my local Aldi, hoping to save a little money on my groceries. Walking in, I noticed an older man sitting outside by himself on a concrete bench in front of the store. A half-hour later I came out with a half-full grocery cart, hurrying home to make a salad to take to the dinner we were sharing that night at a friend’s house with some other couples from church. And there he was, still sitting alone on the bench.

I stopped next to him, asking if he was waiting for a ride – the only logical reason a person would sit on a bench in front of Aldi for a half hour in the hundred-degree Memphis heat. As it turns out, he wasn’t waiting for a ride. He was just sitting on the bench trying to escape the heat because it was in the shade.

I asked him if I could get him anything. He asked for a soda. I apologized, telling him that I didn’t get any soda. Next I asked if I could get him some water, and he said he’d already gotten some water next door at the fast food restaurant. Finally, I apologized to him again and made my way back to my car where I unloaded my groceries into my trunk, got in the front seat of my car … and cried.

I couldn’t just leave that man there and go home to my air conditioning and fridge full of food.

So, I grabbed a five-dollar bill out of my glove box and went back into Aldi where I waited in line for five minutes to buy him an ice-cold bottle of Coke and a Snickers bar. What else could I do?

Truly, sisters, the love of Christ compels me.

And I went back to that bench and sat down with that poor old man and asked him his name.

That man has a name. It’s John.

And he’s been made in the image of God. God created John on purpose. I don’t know anything about John’s life or how he ended up sitting on a steaming hot, concrete bench in front of a grocery store trying to grab any forgotten quarters from the grocery carts locks.

But I do know that if that was my son or my dad or my brother, I’d want someone to sit with him, to notice him, to ask if he needed anything. I’d want someone to talk to him and pray for him. I’d want someone to buy him a Coke and let him use their phone to make a phone call.

So, I laid my hand on John’s knee, prayed for him, and gave him one of the pocket-sized books of John from the Pocket Testament League that I always carry with me.

I wish I could say that I did more to help John, but I didn’t. It’s the struggle I face living in a finite, fallen world with limited time and dangerous men, but I sincerely hope that John will believe that God sees him and wants good for his life.

Will you please join me in praying for John?

And will you please ask God to put someone into your path that you can minister to this week?

Remember that apart from the grace and mercy of God, we are all dead in our sins, hopeless and drowning, poor and blind and lost in darkness, and we have been commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves.

By this we know love, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

1 John 3:16-18 ESV