One of the questions I'm often asked is How do you know if you should help someone or not? Or What do I do when someone comes up to my window?
Sitting at red lights and on exit ramps, we become captive audiences for solicitations and panhandlers alike.
Many people give money and go on their way. Some will circle back with food. Some just stare straight ahead, eyes unflinching.
There's no right or wrong answer; you do what you feel led to do in those situations.
But sometimes you are approached at a gas station or in a parking lot with bigger needs and more elaborate stories.
This is where you need to be smart.
There are true people in need out there and we are commanded to help them.
That doesn't mean to take your kid's diaper money and give it to the beggar on the street corner. (I've seen that happen more times than I can count. The most generous ones are often the ones most in need themselves.)
Nor does it mean to skip winter coats for your kids and buy blankets for the homeless instead. (There's an abundance of churches and individuals at Christmastime who flood homeless camps and shelters with warm blankets and coats. If you have it to give, by all means, do so. Just don't take it out of your own family's basic needs.)
Now if the Lord tells you to do these things in faith, you should do them. But more often than not, when someone puts their own family in a bind to help others, it is a misguided attempt to serve the Lord through works.
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
Yes, even doing good things, if not done in the Spirit, is fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.
Many times I've received calls from tearful moms in the community begging for help with formula or snacks. They'd felt so sorry for someone they saw under a bridge, and guilty that they had a home, that they'd given their grocery money for the week and were now in a bind.
I've gone to the store for some of those guys under the bridge before. They had more cash than I did. Some will even refuse money from a young mom they know is struggling.
Not many, though.
We now know what NOT to do, but what DO we do?
As I've said before, the standard answer is to be led by the Spirit. That makes any black and white instructions null and void.
But for the sake of my pragmatic side, I will give an example of a situation that happened to us just yesterday.
We were at the gas station, filling up. A guy pulled up to the pump next to ours and approached my husband in somewhat of a desperate tone. (Remember now that we have ministry signs of the side of our van saying SERVING CHRIST BY SERVING OTHERS.)
He needed help; his son had been in a bad car accident in New Orleans. (FYI, this is the 5th time we've heard a version of this car accident story in the last year. It is a popular one.)
He left Alabama so frantically that he'd forgotten to grab his wallet. He was just trying to get some gas to get to his son.
I was listening through the car window; my husband Dale was pumping gas.
While Dale became more unconvinced as the story went on, I was the opposite.
This guy is in his 50's or 60's. He's too old to be scamming. (Yes, I know...even I laughed at my own naivety later on.)
Dale sat in the car and asked what I wanted to do.
I wanted to get gas for him. Plain and simple.
But I wasn't going to just give him cash.
We'd already sponsored the habits of the two sisters earlier in the week. (One of which had a boyfriend running their scam we found out yesterday.)
So I went inside.
I put $20 on his pump and walked back to tell him.
"Um, this car is new so if it doesn't take all $20, will it go back on your credit card?"
Um, I know gas has dropped but not that much so if your empty tank can't take $20 we might have a problem with your story...
"I paid cash," I told him. "I'll just wait here until you pump it to make sure it takes it all."
He hung the nozzle back up and sat down in his car.
"Are you okay?" I had my doubts, but I wanted to believe him, to believe he was just too upset to pump his gas. Even on the streets, I truly want to believe the best in people.
I started to pump the gas myself.
"No! No! Don't do that! Look!" he exclaimed as he held up his wallet. "I found my wallet. I must've grabbed it after all. I can get my own gas. You go get your money back."
"Are you sure?" I was prepared to still pay for the gas, but he had become like a caged animal and couldn't escape fast enough.
"No. No," he repeated. "You go get your money."
The second I headed back into the store, he tore out of the parking lot.
Nearby drivers, having heard the exchange, began murmuring.
"He didn't want the gas after you paid for it?"
"That was weird."
One guy, standing next to a propped-up hood, laughed and hollered, "Hey, I'm waiting on my wife to get here if you want to help me!"
I laughed and just shook my head.
I wouldn't have minded spending that $20 to help. Even if it WAS my last $20. But I would've been wrong to just hand him the cash.
When we get someone a bus ticket, we take them all the way to the bus station, pay for the ticket, and sit until they leave. It's too tempting to hold on to the cash.
I watched a young man spend 6 months in Tent City and 2 months in jail before he made it home to New Jersey because every time someone sent him money for a bus ticket, he'd spend it on drugs.
It seems a little Big Brother, I know.
But would you go buy someone a bag of marijuana, a crack rock, or some spice and hand it to them if you saw them holding a sign?
Because nine times out of ten, when you hand them cash, you're doing the same thing.
Be wise.
Benevolent, but wise.
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