Once as I was entering a Long’s Drug Store here in Hawaii, a “panhandler” stood by the door, asking for money to fill a prescription. “Prescription of wine,” I thought, as I looked elsewhere and walked past him. However, as I gathered my items for purchase and stood in the check-out line, I thought, “He did look pretty bad, and did he have a slip of paper in his hand?”
Suddenly a flooding conviction of my failure to aid a fellow human washed over me. “Hurry!” I told the clerk. “Please, Lord,” I prayed, “keep him there, and I’ll buy his medicine or food or whatever he needs.”
I quickly gathered my purchased items and exited the store, but the man had left. I got into my van and drove around the lot looking for him, but he was simply gone. That opportunity was finished. The Scripture came to mind which says, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Hebrews 13:2-3).
I could put myself in this man’s place.
I also once was very poor, addicted to drugs and to drink, subsisting on public assistance, simply passing days until I died. Today I’m married, have fast computers, nice cars, and make a good salary. Every once in a while something inside me wants to lay claim to it. I hear a whisper, as it were, saying, “You did this. You got your act together. Now you’re reaping the rewards. Relax! Enjoy it! You’ve earned it.”
But even as the words sink in, I laugh at the sheer audacity of laying claim to God’s marvelous healing and sustaining work. Then I know, “Marvin, you never drew a sober breath in your life before you called on God’s love and healing power.”
All I have, all I am, all I have potential to be, is from God. He has blessed me mightily. And while I may volunteer my technical expertise on occasion, and though I may write charitable checks and send them off in their clean little envelopes with doves on them, I know where Jesus would be placing his efforts were he present bodily.
He’d be making sandwiches at the shelter.
He’d be helping the elderly in Hale Makua.
He’d be aiding the sick at the hospital.
And I think he probably would have filled that prescription.
Ah, forgive me, Lord. Conform my heart to yours, make me tender. May that which breaks your heart also break mine. May I have your eyes today as I go into the world. Today is another day.