Being in Nashville, all you have to do is walk downtown and you are guaranteed to see a glimpse into the life of the homeless. They’re standing on the streets holding signs, at a corner playing their beat up guitars, while some may just be sitting there with an appearance of complete despair and no hope…and what is your first response? Do your best to avoid them, because after all, they’re just beggars wanting your money to buy cigarettes and alcohol, RIGHT? We have become so desensitized to the homeless community as though they don’t even exist. I say this only from my own personal experience, but I’m not naive enough to think that others don’t feel this way as well.
This is a reality all over the world, but it’s never affected me as much and I’ve never been impacted by it in such a tremendous way until just recently. I’d been in China for nearly four weeks and already knew the existence of the beggars that roamed the streets, because after all I had already been approached by dozens of them. They would come around you holding out their hand implying that they wanted you to give them money; however, I was not prepared for what I was about to experience in this one particular place.
I arrived in this developing city in the middle of nowhere, found a place to stay, and began to walk the streets. It immediately hit.
I walked by this man sitting on the road whose legs were amputated… I looked into his eyes and felt completely brokenhearted. I had an adorable little boy come up to me wanting money, and then completely grabbed ahold of my leg and held on to it tightly as I kept walking…my heart cried out to him. I had mothers come to me with their small babies in their arms, holding out their hand asking for money while pointing to their kid…they left with a look on their face of “How could you not help my little baby?” An old man with a limp walked into the place where I was sitting down to eat, and showed me a picture of an x-ray and doctors reports(which I obviously couldn’t read) implying that he had to have surgery and needed money. These are just a few of the many encounters that I had with the beggars of this town.
It was overwhelming. I was constantly being approached. I didn’t have the money to just hand out to everyone. If I give one person money, shouldn’t I give everyone else money? It got very annoying, because they wouldn’t just come and go…they would persistently stand there just looking at me, waiting for me to pull out the money. After a while, it began to mess with my emotions. Why was it that I was beginning to feel like the foreign American jerk?
Needless to say, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I just didn’t know how to handle it. Then the story of the beggar in Acts 3 came to my mind, where Peter and John said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” It was hard with the little kids, the mothers, and the crippled to keep coming to me desperately begging for money. My attitude changed. I was lost in compassion for these people. I began to realize that I couldn’t give money to them all, but I knew that there was something I could do. I could pray for them, so I began to pray the same words Peter and John spoke to the beggar in Acts. I prayed that Christ would pour His love into their hearts and that they would somehow come to find true hope in Him.
When you encounter the homeless and beggars or the less unfortunate…how do you respond? Are you lost in compassion? Are you praying for them? Are you letting God’s love radiate into their hearts by reaching out and ministering to them? Wherever you are and you encounter the homeless who begin to ask you for money, you may not give them money…but don’t completely ignore them and walk the other way. Spend a few minutes talking with them showing them you care. You’re not gaining anything in life by doing nothing, but when you reach out your hand with some hope it changes the world.
