The darker side....

Recently I received this e-mail from a friend. He's someone who has completely devoted his life to Christ and is actively serving the poor in our community. Here's a portion of what he wrote:

Now, I will also let my hair down and share some frustrations in my journey to be available to those in need. Maybe you can help me.

I will confess that, as I work with families in distress, I tire of their inability to make deadlines and do the (often simple) things they need to do. For example, there's a family that lived in our neighborhood for years who has benefitted many times from the generosity of the church. Neat familiy. And yet they still forget (every year) to register for the Christmas-basket program and then call me to lament how they won't have anything for Christmas. With almost a tinge of "it's the churches fault we missed the deadline."

I love the family and we will help again this year . . . and I will also give them my encouraging pep talk about being proactive and responsible, and they will say "yes, we will," and then right back to square one.

Here's my quandry--I know that a family in poverty can't be expected to be all tip-top orderly like a family who's not in stress. And yet, poverty doesn't have to mean a person is irresponsible or inept. I often wonder if we "enable" rather than "empower" with our gifts. I work really hard to encourage "empowerment" and yet "enabling" still seems to be the outcome.

That, of course, shouldn't mean we give up. I am just trying to have the Lord help me understand how to be more effective (in Him). I realize that our job is to "simply engage" not "fix," that servanthood is a two-way street of transformation for both me and the family/person I'm helping . . . and still it breaks my heart to see people stuck in first gear.

Thanks for letting me unload. I'm not upset, just mildly frustrated. Please enlighten me!

In Christ,
"Bob" (name changed for anonymity)

My response was as follows:

Dear "Bob", I regret to tell you that I am unable to offer any enlightenment with regards to your "enabling" versus "empowering" dilemma. What I can do, is tell you that I've had similar struggles and if you have the patience to read through this entire e-mail, I would be more than happy to share some of my personal journey as it relates to living life in the trenches with hurting people.

I think you already know that when I was young, I experienced an abusive childhood where I was verbally and physically battered. You also know that I've battled addiction and thus, I am well acquainted with the soul numbing anguish that comes with losing every shred of self respect and dignity in the bottom of a bottle. It might surprise you to know that I've also known what it is to be dirt poor, and to literally live without a pot to piss in....

...and still, knowing all that I have known and having experienced all that I have experienced in this life, I've gone on to make two regrettable mistakes as I've tried to carry out Christ's desire for me to be His heart, His hands and His feet for the broken, the poor and the hurting among us. As inconceivable as it might seem, my first mistake was made in romanticizing the plight of the poor in our community; and my second, more egregious error, was made in condemning those individuals who gave only marginal assent to their own responsibility regarding the difficulties and challenges they face in their own lives.

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting these are anybody's errors but my own. I own these errors, and I own them gladly because they have taught me much about God's grace and His over-powering love and forgiveness.

Here's what I've learned.

There is a darker side to living and loving with compassion and I believe that darker side of compassion is best exemplified by Christ's willingness to choose death on the cross. Christ our Lord, our Saviour, the Holy Lamb of God died on the cross for an eternity of idiots. He died for all of the connivers, all of the ingrates, all of the belligerent ones; and miracle of miracles he died for you, just as he died for me. Christ died for all of us, precisely because God loves all of His creation...even the idiots, the whiners and the nare-do-wells.

Oh "Bob"! I could weep for the sheer beauty of it! God is so full of grace and so full of compassion for us, that through Christ, God has cleared the path to true freedom. God has given us His spirit of abundant compassion and His wellspring of love in order that we might love as God loves. For me, this is true freedom.

I will admit that I have often struggled with trying to discern where I have enabled versus empowered others. Rarely has this dilemma been about truly discerning whether my helping was actually hurting. More often than not, it was all about my judgement of another person's worthiness to receive my care, my time, my money, my love. Or worse still, it was about looking good before my brothers and sisters in Christ, and trust me that knife cut both ways. All too often, I wasn't doing enough or in other instances, I was doing too much. Take your pick, but it all boils down to my letting the opinions of others sway me from doing what I knew was the right thing to do.

We both know that many of the people living in poverty, live with a sense of entitlement. Many are conniving. Many are dishonest. Many, by this society's standards anyway, are unworthy of my care, but here's where the darker side of compassion rears it's beautiful head. I am free to love them anyway. I am free to engage and to aid and to care without limits or expectations. Do people take advantage? Yes. Do I have a responsibility to refuse to enable where I clearly am? Yes; but in all honesty, I have to say that those instances are fewer and farther between than one might expect.

In my experience, I have often seen that material and financial care/assistance without relationship, can and often does lead to the kinds of situations you have described in your e-mail. I've seen this reality play out in my own life and in the corporate life of our church as I/we care for our neighbors. I suspect that the issue of dependency, and the sense of entitlement like the one you described in your e-mail often evolve out of lack of genuine community/relationship between the resourcer and the resourcee. (I'm not saying this is what has happened in the situation you have described, just that in general, this is a pattern I have observed.)

For me personally, my response isn't to cease caring or offering succour. My responsibility is to reach deeper into myself and where I am allowed, to reach more deeply into that other person's life. I've resolved to never give up anyone, because Christ never gave up on me. It took Him 40 some odd years, but His persistence finally won out. I want my persistence to win out too because I believe that in spite of my mistakes, in spite of any instances where I may have enabled rather than empowered, God will persevere through me.

"Bob", I cannot offer you any clear cut advice on how to be more effective for Christ, but the fact that you are wondering about things such as these, suggests to me that God is moving you towards something new. Perhaps that "something" new will be some new, life breathing insight, or a new idea on how best to serve others, or maybe it will simply be a deeper understanding of God's love for you. Either way, let me just say, that it is good to be questioning and to be wondering. I believe that we have much to learn from our own questions and so I honor you as you speak and search out the truth of your own pondering.

Well, I've gone on long enough and while I doubt very much that I've provided any clarity for you in this e-mail, I can offer to pray for you and I can encourage you. Whether you see the results you long to see, whether you can measure the benefits your loving actions give to others, I am here to tell you that what you do matters to God and to the people you serve. See through our eyes and rest in the knowledge that what we see is good.

Merry Christmas "Bob"and thanks for all that you do on behalf of our community!