Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Small things can still mean a lot...

So there's this guy outside of my office.  He's homeless.  His name is Steve.

I started talking with him a while back because of a message at church.  In the message, Pastor Mark shared the story of the Good Samaritan and challenged our view of who our neighbors are...challenged me.

So as a result of that, I've spoken with Steve a few times.  He's from Houston, Texas.  Not really sure how he got here.  But he has a cane and he's had hip replacement surgery...so he walks with a limp...when he does walk.  He mostly stays at the bus stop outside my work.  He doesn't really like IHS or the other shelters.  He's slept at the bus stop outside my work and at the old Advertiser building on Kapiolani (among other places).

Recently, I've been walking by the stop and I kinda say hi as I go by and didn't really get an acknowledgement from him.  So believe it or not, I got offended. (Sheesh. I suck.) So for a little while I was thinking, "O, so you don't wanna say, 'hi'. Ok, I'm not gonna help you or get you stuff."

But as soon as I got that bad attitude, I could feel God say, "Jared, are you serious?!?! A homeless guy doesn't say, 'hi' to you and you're gonna act like this?  C'mon now" <---this is a paraphrase BTW

So of course I'm wrong.

Of course I am.

I know I am.

So I ask myself, how do I love this guy?  How do I care for this man?  How do I love/care for my neighbor as myself?

The next day I bought him a Gatorade. 

He was so stoked!

"Hot tamale!!! Thank you, thank you," he said.

Today, me and Max got to talk stories with Steve again and got to pray for him, too.   In doing that, it made me wonder about something...

How much is enough?  Tell you about that later.

But for now, if you wanna help someone out, it doesn't have to be a huge life changing thing.  It could be small...but still life changing thing. 

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