Category Archives: Breaking the Broken

Do you Value or Pity the Poor?

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Do You Value or Pity the Poor

Many of us provide services or minister to the poor. We donate clothing and supplies, provide food and shelter and this is done because we value human life. To value something means to find it important and our hearts are broken when we see our fellow humans suffering so we work to alleviate their pain.

But there is another aspect of value and a very different way to respond. To value something also means to find it useful. We believe it has worth and is important. While we may see our service as important, do we really see the poor as important? Do we see their worth and usefulness?

Pity, on the other hand, is the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others. The truth is, most of our services are driven out of pity and not value. You see we invest in what we believe in. When we only meet the immediate need, without working to help them gain sustainable change in their lives, we are showing our thoughts on their value.

Finding Purpose in the Poor

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Purpose in the PoorSeveral years ago, Rick Warren wrote a book which had a major impact on our society. People ran to stores to buy it. He was featured on news programs, talk shows and his face graced the cover of magazines. His book became the topic of Sunday School Classes, Life Groups, Men’s and Women’s small group studies, and retreats. His book is still in the top 50 list of all-time best-selling books.

Why did this book take the country by storm? Why did more than 30 million of us buy it? People put other books aside and even took days off of work to read this one. What did he share that was so important? Was it a fail-safe secret to financial success or a guaranteed method for raising our children?

No. He showed us that there is a reason we are here. He led us to find something bigger than ourselves, something that motivated us to get out of bed every morning. We found significance. We discovered we were put here for a reason. We learned our lives were not a series of random events; we were created with a purpose.

If finding our purpose is so important, why don’t we want to provide that same opportunity to those we serve? Isn’t it important for them to discover their purpose? Don’t they deserve the privilege of getting out of bed every morning knowing they were created in the image of God for a reason, or is that only for us? Either we don’t see they have purpose or we don’t care that they have one. It has to be one or the other. If we see their purpose, then we must help them work towards that purpose. Our service has to provide more. No one’s purpose is to stand in line for a box of food.

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God Made Noah Work

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NoahMost of our Christian service to the poor is based on giving and not equipping. I’m not sure why we have taken this approach because that is not the example we see in Scripture. God always made man do everything that was within his abilities. God always required man to work to care for his own needs. There were no hand-outs in God’s Plan. Below is a short example of God’s requirement when a hand-out would have been much easier.

In Genesis 6, we read that mankind had grown wicked and all their schemes were evil all the time. God was fed up. He decided He was going to destroy all living things from the face of the earth. He was going to wipe the plate clean and start over, but not completely. There was one man that God would save.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God. (Gen. 6:8-9 HCSB)

God would start over with Noah, but how did God do this? He flooded the entire earth and destroyed every living thing, but saved Noah and his family. God could have made it easy on Noah. He could have had Noah go into the woods, where he would find a big boat that was filled with all the food and supplies he would need. The boat would have been completely ready to go. All Noah would need to do is load up and ride out the storm.

God could have had all the tools drop-shipped to Noah’s front porch. He could have had the materials delivered to the side yard. That’s the way it happened in the Hollywood movie, but that is not what God did. God worked within the Plan that He had established in the garden. Noah had to do the work himself.

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Jesus Never Set Up a Food Pantry

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WMIcrowavee live in a microwave society. We don’t like to wait. We want things fixed and we want them fixed quickly. We rarely spend the time investigating to discover the underlying reasons behind behaviors or situations. If a child’s behavior is not acceptable we want immediate change, so we give that child a pill.

Some friends of ours have tried a new approach to training their son. When he disobeys, talks back, or is rude, they stop; they calm the situation down and then ask, “Where is your heart right now?” They want to get to the reason behind his behavior.
They want to get to the cause. This question has led them to some incredible conversations about how we represent Christ in our everyday lives.

Our desire for the quick and easy fix has also infiltrated our service to the poor. Most of the time, energy and money spent is focused on the symptoms of the struggle. That’s not what Jesus did. Jesus always addressed the reasons and not the results of the struggle. Jesus didn’t give away clothes, set up food pantries or homeless shelters. He healed people, because if the cause is corrected, then the symptoms take care of themselves.

Before I am labeled a heretic and people are calling for my head, let’s set the record straight. Felt-need assistance must continue to be available. Scripture requires us to provide for people who are physically or mentally unable to provide for themselves. It’s necessary to deliver services to people who live in areas of the world where the land cannot produce enough food and water for those living there. We also need to offer assistance to those who are going through hard times, but this must only be available as a stop-gap measure.

I am not saying that providing these services to hurting people is a sin. They are necessary, but they must be done in the right way and with the right motives. Doing something poorly is often worse than doing nothing at all. The systematic, long-term provision for people who are physically and mentally capable of caring for themselves must stop. It must come to an end. These services have a detrimental effect on everyone and in no way display the love of Christ. If your service has a singular focus on the symptom, are you really meeting the need or are you adding to the problem?

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The Hypocrisy of Love

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Laura Burgess FallsI will never forget the day that Laura was born. Amanda (our oldest) was facing the challenge of being a single parent, but she was not going to face it alone. She had a support system around her and she asked Meredith, her two sisters and me to be in the delivery room with her. Amanda’s water broke at 7:30 in the morning on May 16, 2008. It was a very long and exhausting day and I wasn’t even the one in labor.

At 9:52 that night, through screams and tears, Laura made her appearance. They wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to Amanda. The rest of us pressed in to see our new family member. Much to my surprise, Amanda held her for only a few seconds and then handed her to me. I was going to be the man in Laura’s life and Amanda wanted me to spend some of those first few moments with Laura.

As I stared down at this incredible gift from God, I was overwhelmed. I felt an area of my heart, that I did not even know existed, jump to life. I felt it begin to fill with a love that I had never experienced before. It was nothing short of amazing. Is there anything more miraculous than the birth of a child?

This young life had been created in the image of God. I whispered a prayer in her ear. I prayed for her protection. I prayed for her future. I prayed she would grow into an incredible woman of God and live for Him.

I prayed for strength to be the man who would lead her. I prayed I would give her an example of how a Godly man treats a woman. I prayed I would know how to point her to Jesus. I committed to sacrifice my own desires, comfort and security so this young child would have every opportunity afforded to her. I promised to do everything within my power to help her become the women God had created her to be.

Today, as I look into the eyes of the men, women and children we serve, I wonder what their birth was like. Did someone hold them and appreciate the incredible miracle of that moment? Did someone find a new place in their heart they did not even know existed? Did that moment change someone else’s life forever as they prayed for that child?

Do we see  this kind of value in those we serve? Meredith and I have a long history of serving, but I have to admit I did not always see those we served as unique creations made in God’s image. I often missed their value. I thought I was there to fix them. I had a Savior Mentality riding in on my white horse to relieve the suffering of the poor.

You may think this attitude doesn’t apply to you and you may be right. It may not, but you know this attitude is alive and well in churches and service organizations. We serve out of pity, not because we see value. We want a quick solution so we can feel like we’ve done our part and go back to our lives. We want to be able to check the box.

We hear of a single mom who can’t make her light bill, so we write the check because, “That’s what love would do.” We find out there are a group of men living under the bridge and we give them blankets when it’s cold. “You know, Jesus said when you give to the least of these you’ve given to Me.” Blindly providing for the needs of others is not a display of Godly love. In fact, I don’t think it is a display of any form of love.

If serving others by addressing the symptom is a display of love, then I owe my children a huge apology, because I obviously hated them. You see, I taught them to work hard. I pushed them to be the best they could be, to display character, integrity, and to succeed by living a Godly life. That’s what parents are supposed to do. That’s what love does.

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