Let’s be honest, I’m in danger myself, I’m stressed, I’m dealing with employees who are stressed. I’m in need of charity myself right now. I’ve got people to take care of who whose livelihoods are threatened. I had to accept some charity myself recently and figure out how I felt about it. I wasn’t going to say no. We needed it. But I still had to take some time and work out my feelings about it.
So, considering that there are people who need my help here, now, considering that I’m under real pressure and people around me are in real pressure and our means of living (to say little of our charity) is in danger, why should I care about giving to charity? Especially international charity, help for people I don’t know, far away, who I may never meet, when the people right in front of me are in danger of losing their jobs and homes and businesses and everything they’ve spent their lives working for. I have a hard time having the hope and energy to just get up in the morning. I’ve already got so many cares and stresses and people around me in far worse situations than even I’m in. I barely even have the bandwidth to care about those people. Mostly I’m just glad I’m not as badly off as they are. And I’m worrying if maybe soon I will be. So why should I give a care about throwing international charity on top of that?
Was my charity just a kind of largesse? Was it predicated on the idea that I’m totally fine and secure and so I have the freedom to share a bit and help out a bit? But take that away and it’s gone. I mean, I guess there is some truth to that. But is my charity just a formula, is it only as real as my own security?
Why did I give? Did it fulfill something in my personality? Did it make me feel like I was being nice, like I was a good person, like I was fulfilling a duty? Did it assuage my latent guilt over my own success or good fortune? Did it feel like a sacrifice that acknowledged my own blessings, so I wouldn’t be struck down for not appreciating or sharing them?
Make it a discipline in sharing hope and sharing need. I know what it’s like to need help, I know what it’s like to receive help. I also know what it’s like to give help. And this is a chance to share all of that. I’m a person in need in my situation. And people have helped me. I can help some others in their situation. And maybe they will help someone else too (and the data about the poor supports that, they will often share and help one another surprisingly generously). This is a chance for us all to share our help and our need. To be all together in this. We’re not just sponsors and benefactors on different sides of the fence. We’re both together. We can share our hope and help, we can share our needs and fears. We can encourage one another to be together and help together and receive help together.
Make your sacrifice as small as you need it to be. If I’ve learned anything from the Bible, it’s that it isn’t about how big and grand a thing is. It’s not about impressing pewor making a statement. It’s about just taking that little step on the journey toward God and his heart. Any step. You can make that step as small as you need to make it. A single dollar to one person, and let that be enough, if that’s what it needs to be. Just don’t make it nothing. Faith isn’t about leaping huge gorges so everyone can see you fly. It’s about being willing to just take those first steps into the unknown to follow the call.
Take care of yourself. You can’t help anyone if you don’t care for yourself. I don’t mean looking out for number one in a selfish manner, I mean caring for yourself like you’re someone you care about and have been given to take care of. Here a truth you may not have been reminded of lately. You are one the people God has given you to take care of. How can he trust you to take care of your family, or your neighbors, how can he expect you to love them like yourself, if you don’t even know how to love and care for yourself?
Having said that, God knows that your first responsibility is to those closest to you. Those are that have been put in your path to take care of. As the Bible says, even the pagans know you need to take care of your family. God wants you to care about the people close to you. Not only your family, but your own city, your own country. And if they’re hurting, if they need you, you’re part of them, and they’re part of you, and you should care specially about them, because you’re specially placed to understand them and help them. You’ve been given a position, a responsibility, a belonging. So don’t run away from that.
Love first what you were meant to love. Just don’t let it chase you out of finding places where you can take that single, tiny extra step of faith toward God’s heart, who loves and cares for all and has the presence and power to care for everyone. It’s ok, you’re not God, you can’t be everywhere. You need to be where you are first. You don’t have power everywhere. So you need to use your power judiciously where you have understanding and influence and responsibility. But if you have any room left, take a moment to remind yourself of the heart of God, and find a way, any little way, to imitate him and remind yourself of the power of one who gave himself who a world that knew him not. He always had more to give, and we honor his generosity, his example, when we follow it, no matter how small the step.
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