To be clear, the best help for any poor person will be as part of a deep and loving relationship, but this is difficult to achieve, and is a subject quite complex. We’ll get to this in time (Lord willing). There are, however, simple things that almost anyone can do, that will ease the day of a poor person a bit. Providing relief to the poor, even small relief, is never insignificant. Who knows? It may even lead to a deep and loving relationship.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
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- Purchase a handful of one-day bus passes, and keep them in your car. I am often asked for money “for a bus pass” while I am outside of a convenience store. I then happily give a bus pass.
- Purchase a handful of “Arch Cards”, and keep them in your car. These are basically McDonald’s gift cards. You can go to the McDonald’s web site to find a McDonald’s near you that sells these. Hand these out whenever someone tells you they are hungry.
- Purchase a flat of bottled water. Hand them out at a bus stop. Keep them in your car, and hand them out to people who look thirsty.
- If there is a food pantry, soup kitchen, thrift store, or other agency that helps the poor, volunteer. Even an hour or two a week can make a difference.
- Pray. The most productive people in God’s kingdom are those who pray a lot.
- If you know someone who is lonely, invite them to dinner. The lonely are perhaps the poorest of all.
- Visit a nursing home. There are more poor people there than most realize.
- If you know a person or family that has a hard time making ends meet, give them a gift card from your local grocery store.
- Do you know where the homeless are often found? If so, give them gift cards from your local grocery store.
- Do you know a single mother? Offer some babysitting services so she can take a much needed break.
- Do you know a single mother? Invite her and her kids over for a BBQ (or dinner, or lunch).
- See someone sitting alone in Church? Sit next to them.
Sure, these things may be small, but they are significant, because they show love, and love is procreative and generative, just like God (because God is love – 1 John 4:8). Love, once planted, will spring to life and grow in all kinds of crazy and unexpected directions.
You never can tell with love. Some have even called it dangerous.
