Do you have complicated emotions (including guilt) around the subject of giving money to beggars? Living in a country with an official unemployment rate of 33%, where the majority of the population live below the breadline, it’s hard not to.

Who do you give to? When do you give? What do you give?

In today's episode we touch lightly on how to help those around us.

Show Notes

• [00.59] Your own worst critic

• [02.13] In the face of poverty

• [05.00] A complicated subject, and a Christian view

• [06.42] It's all about the 'and'

• [07.31] The forgiveness of sins

• [11.05] How we treat the poor

• [14.40] Faith based on the Bible

• [16.35] Recommendations on how to frame your strategy

• [22.15] A real life example

• [26.14] God's economy

Quotes

"Turning from our sins is what clears the way for our relationship with God." - Lisa Linfield

"How grateful are we really that our sins are forgiven." - Lisa Linfield

"If we truly understood the weight of our sins, we would be overflowing with gratitude." - Lisa Linfield

"I think God's economy just works differently to us." - Lisa Linfield

"God beautifully designed our world to have absolutely enough for every one of us." - Lisa Linfield

"That's how God works. He takes you out of your comfort zone to teach you." - Lisa Linfield

Related posts and episodes

• Why God isn’t answering your prayers

• The Humbling Discovery that’s shifting my focus

• The God of the impossible

• Actually... YOU can change the world with Sara Price

• Why Financial enablement doesn't help those you love

Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Spotify

Please do Subscribe to our Podcast on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review.  This helps the podcast to rank higher and therefore makes it more visible to others browsing podcasts in the hope they too may benefit from our content.

Get my book - Deep Grooves: Overcoming Patterns that Keep you Stuck

• You can get the first two chapters of my book FREE here

• If you want a paperback copy and you’re in South Africa, visit my site LisaLinfield.com

  If you want a Kindle copy or a paperback anywhere in the world, visit Amazon

TRANSCRIPT

For those of us who live in countries where people beg at every traffic light, at every shopping center and even at the door of your home, the challenge of who to give to and when is a complicated subject.

Today we’re going to touch on the surface of this topic.  Just those that beg around us – not the entire topic of the poor or tithing.

It’s been an interesting topic to research, so have a listen to some of my current thoughts.

The struggle with the guilt of giving

I don’t know about you, but no-one on earth is better able to beat me up more than I can beat myself up. 

I once had a boss called Saks, who I worked for on and off for 10 or more years, so we knew each other pretty well.

I was working on a big project and one morning I realised that I had screwed up BIG TIME.  Now I was senior, and I led a pretty big project team, so there were many involved, but at the end of the day, I was the leader, and it was my mistake.  And I knew I’d be in deep doo-doo.

So, with my tail between my legs, I knocked on his office, and said I had a confession to make, that I’d screwed up.  So he picked up his coffee, went over to his office couch, and I proceeded to explain, and draw for him, the problem – what happened, why it happened, what the impact would be and how we could rectify it.

When I was finished, he said just one word, “cool”.

I was truly blown away.  “Cool”.  No shouting, no sending me to stand in the corner?  His response was so telling.

“Lisa,” he said, “I could never beat you up quite like you are able to beat yourself up.”

Now I know I have a harsh inner critic, and I talk about her a lot in my book Deep Grooves.   And I know that I need to reign her in.  But I also know that when it comes to the subject of Giving and helping the poor, there’s a part of me that wants to just run away and hide.  Because it stirs up a whole heap of GUILT – which when combined with my Christian faith, can truly bring out the worst Cruella de Ville.

You see, for those of us that live in places where we are surrounded by poverty, it’s hard not to be assaulted by guilt ALL. THE. TIME.  The price of our cappuccino could feed a person for a day.  And in South Africa, it’s not just those with extreme mental health issues that are on the streets.  With an official 33% employment rate amongst those who are seeking jobs, it totally underestimates the number of those who have given up looking for a job, or those who are doing some work, but are desperate to have a full time job, or underemployment.  And with almost no social services or housing, people are truly poor.

And there comes the guilt.  Which I absolutely hate.  And if I’m honest, I can feel a little anger too.

I mean, I have worked hard for what I have, so don’t I deserve to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour without feeling guilty?  The money I’ve earned, the freedom it gives me to buy that cappuccino – to spend it how I want to spend it… can’t I just live in peace without having someone beg for something every time I stop at a traffic light or leave a shop, or am in my own home and the doorbell rings with someone asking for something?

And don’t we all have stories of giving money to someone at a traffic light, who said they were hungry, only to hear that they spend the money on drugs?  Or children who then give the money to an adult who’s actually keeping them in slavery? 

And with all this, it makes me want to dig my head in the sand and pretend it all doesn’t exist.  The problem is complicated, multi-layered, and to even try to understand how to solve it, makes me want to hide.

But each one of us needs to think through a strategy for giving to beggars and how it fits in with our faith, or we risk Our relationship with God.

So why is

Giving to beggars is central to our relationship with God

Now I have to come clean here.  I love the world view that pervades Christianity that if we just ask for forgiveness of our sins, have faith in Christ and love God and pray, all will be fine in our relationship with God.  It is the central message of Paul’s writing.  That it’s not good deeds that matter, it’s being kind, having faith and love.  

I want so much to gloss over the many parts of the bible that talk about God’s judgement of us, and how many times the bible talks about how our actions – the fruit of our trees – reflect what’s TRULY in our heart.  So much to ignore Jesus’ own words. 

But when I take the time to look a little closer at the world view of what I want to believe, I see how I want to be able to pick and choose the parts of the bible that suit me.  It seems my lifelong mantra “it’s all about the AND” applies to the bible too.  Paul’s message of faith, love, kindness and attitude of the heart AND a clear understanding of God’s Judgement, desire for us to act as his hands and feet, a standard of behaving too.

1.       Turning from our sins is what clears the way for our relationship with God

It is true that when we truly repent, we are forgiven, and our slate is wiped clean… because Christ died once for the forgiveness of all sins.  And if God forgives us, we don’t have to keep beating ourselves up for all we do wrong.

But here’s the challenge.  John the Baptist’s message was entirely based on repentance – that all should repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus was coming, and he would judge so all should turn to God and come clean.  But he was clear - it wasn’t ok just to be baptized – have a dip in the water and all will be forgiven.  In Luke 3 he specifically says:  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  A bit like you and I, the crowd then asks for specifics, “What should we do then?”… a bit like – “I get it, but what does that actually mean?

His answer was clear:  John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Now shirts in those days were seriously expensive.  Clothing wasn’t just for a season, like today – back then your wardrobe was small and functional because it was so expensive.  And food wasn’t readily available because it was both seasonal, couldn’t easily stay fresh being transported and was also expensive.  So John was seriously challenging them to give something precious to those less fortunate as a sign of gratitude to God for forgiving them for their sins.

So I guess the first thing we need to do is challenge ourselves by asking the question, how grateful are we really that our sins are forgiven?

If I am honest, I think I take for granted that if I ask for forgiveness, my sins are forgiven.  So I don’t think I truly live in deep gratitude for my sins being forgiven.  I definitely live in deep gratitude for God’s provision, but not for sins forgiven.

And John’s whole point of deep gratitude is again echoed by Jesus when he was anointed by the Samaritan woman with her tears and expensive perfume – yet the Pharisee host hadn’t even given him water to wash his feet (as was customary). In Luke 7 he challenges the Pharisee “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

And that’s the challenge to all of us – if we truly understood the weight of our sin, we would be overflowing with gratitude that it was forgiven, and like the Samaritan woman, we would give to others, including the beggars, out of sheer gratitude for all we had been forgiven.

2.       For Jesus, how we treat the poor is how we treat him

So here we have Jesus, who has died for our sins to be forgiven.  As John says, the way to honour that great debt we owe Jesus is to feed and clothe, or give to others.

Now Jesus adds a different spin in Matthew 25.  For him, it goes further than gratitude.  It is about giving to HIM, not giving to the poor.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ And, like those in the story, we would ask – when did we do that?  And his response:

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

And I think that’s crucial to how we feel about the poor.  Do we see helping the poor as helping Jesus?

3.       Our experience of Heaven and God in the life after, is linked to our treatment of the poor

And, I have to confess, this is when I want to cling to Paul’s part of the AND argument, that our salvation is by faith alone.  But Jesus in his own words is all about the AND.

As I always say, the context of a verse is key to understanding the bible. 

This passage in Matthew 25 is not just about the poor.  It’s actually about our eternal life.

The passage, which is Jesus’ own words, starts as follows:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world

And who will go to the right?

Those that Gave the poor, and by proxy, Jesus, food to eat, water to drink, clothing, healthcare and hospitality.

And who goes to the left?

Those who didn’t.  The passage finishes by saying…

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

And this is where our challenge truly lies.  A faith based on the bible demands us to know that our salvation is first and foremost, believing that God loved us so much he wanted to join his pure and perfect spirit to each one of us.  But because his pureness, and our sin can’t be joined, he gave us one perfect sacrifice to be the bridge between us.

So yes, we are first to walk humbly with our God in faith and love.

AND

We are to respond to that love of God, by loving others… as we would, in fact, love ourselves.

If we were hungry, wouldn’t we want food?  If we are cold, wouldn’t we want warm clothes?

It’s Jesus’ summary of the commandments – love God and love our neighbour.

And the way we do that was always supposed to be so amazing, the whole world would look at us and say, “Gosh, that community is truly phenomenal.  They help their own, they help others.  Why is it?” and we would be able to point to the fact that because our God has given us so much in his grace and love, it is natural we would give that grace and love to others.

The big Challenge

I absolutely don’t want to downplay the enormous complexity of giving to the poor.  In the brilliant book “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett, he goes into great depth on this issue… which we will discuss in a more detailed episode later.  Today we are only looking at one slither of the challenge – when we are face to face with beggars on the street.

What I do want to do however is give a few recommendations on how to frame your strategy for dealing the challenge.

 The Strategy

When it comes to this part – the meeting of the theory with the practice, I have to tell you that my tummy is FILLED with anxiety to even begin to try and tackle such a huge topic in these few minutes.

I’m anxious because I know there are so many different ways to approach this, and mine is probably wrong.  But as always, I will put my first thoughts out there, knowing that in 3 years time I may look back on this as my relationship with God deepens and cringe with regret.

So please grant me the grace of knowing these are just first thoughts…

The most important place to start is to ask God to guide you as to how you approach this, and listen to the promptings of the spirit.

The strategy involves three elements

1.      The Who and How

2.      The What

3.      The Why

The Who and the How.

This is really challenging as there is so much need when you live in a country with such unbelievable systemic poverty.

Many people, deeply concerned about whether the money in fact enables the person begging to continue in drugs or indebtedness, choose not to give directly to those begging, but choose to give to organisations or people that work with the poor and screen well who truly needs it.  That way it ensures that people who are in need of the basics of food, clothes, shelter receive what is needed, and it doesn’t go to supporting habits that lead to destruction.

In general, that is my approach.  To support the people who support the homeless.

However, my heart does struggle when I see those who are on the street corner.  So if I do give directly, I use a little matrix in my head that first and foremost, I support those that are trying to sell or do something to make money - singing or dancing or the car guards at a shopping center – even if I don’t buy the object, but just donate.  Secondly, I will generally support women first and grannies or disabled people as they are generally more likely to be supporting children who can’t support themselves.

The What

My mum always had a principle for those who came begging directly at our house – a principle I’ve always followed.  Give everyone food.  So whenever people came to our door – whether they ask for money or not, I give them food.  Everyone.

Some people in their cars carry a bag of apples with them, and do the same.  Everyone who begs, gets an apple. That way, people’s first and foremost need of food is taken care of, and you’re almost guaranteed that the food is used for them, and not drugs.

When it comes to money, I completely changed my thinking because of a verse in Deuteronomy 24 – that is repeated in Leviticus and other places.

Effectively, the Israelites were commanded that in harvesting their fields, they were to make sure the edges of the fields were left unharvested, and they were only to work the crop once, leaving the rest for the foreigner, fatherless and widow.  The poor.

What’s interesting is the “why”.

A bit like John’s argument, God says “Remember you were slaves in Egypt”.  It is out of gratitude for the depths God has gone to to save us from slavery that we are to allow others the edges of our fields.  Right there and then, I decided that whenever I was given “small change” or coins, they would go into the car, and be given to those I came into contact with.

The biggest surprise to me was the huge attitude shift in me.

I had always given small change to car guards, petrol attendants and ladies… but if I was honest, I was always so deeply resentful that I couldn’t go anywhere without people always asking for something.  The guilt thing.

Now, whenever I have small change, I give it freely.  It’s the edge of my field.  I have been so greatly blessed by this concept.  And, if there wasn’t change, I wouldn’t have to give.  But I do now actively seek to get change in coins, and freely give.

Here’s an example from just this week.

Spirit Prompting:  A week ago, I was seriously moved by how cold it has been.  It’s Freezing and Wet out there, and I’m freezing in my house – so there’s no way that people who are living in iron shacks aren’t freezing.

The Who:  So, I reached out to people who know exactly who in the community may need blankets because they are our area’s disaster support team.  I have no idea and am not close enough to know where the biggest need is, but they do, and I attend church with a lady who heads it up. 

The How:  So, I gathered support from others in my bible studies and prayer groups who donated what they could.  I then went down to Makro and bought 70 blankets, and another friend raised another two bags of blankets.

What was amazing about this story is that we set this in motion before the final recipients became known.  As it turned out, just that week, a fire had taken out around 50 shacks in an informal settlement, and so people who already had nothing, had even less.

I love giving physical stuff to disaster relief.  That doesn’t fall under the normal challenges of giving hand-outs… it’s a unique, once off event that happened through no normal fault of the people impacted.

The Why

So that brings us to why we should give.

Now I decided I wanted to show my children physically, and not just tell them, that we should give to the poor.  That was why in addition to my tithe, I give.

And maybe I also give because I feel guilty that I am warm and dry and have blankets and others don’t.

So while there are many good reasons we all give, the real reason we should give is because God’s beautiful design for our world is that there is absolutely enough for every single one of us.  Deuteronomy 15 says “There should be no poor among you,” God declared when talking to His people, the Israelites.   The first followers of Jesus after his death, the Acts community was described in Acts 4 as “There were no needy persons among them”.   His Economy was always intended to have each of us look after the other.

What’s been amazing about this last week of organizing the blankets is I can’t tell you how much I’ve learnt from God on this giving thing.  The challenges, the opportunities, the nuances, as I’ve worked with different givers, the local district disaster team and even the people in the shop I bought the blankets.  It is the stuff of a whole different episode… but I think that’s how God works – takes you out of your comfort zone to teach you.  Stuff I wouldn’t learn without having decided to answer His stirring in my spirit.

In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, there is this big common theme that runs throughout it… we are supposed to be giving to the poor.  And we should give because

1.      It is the most appropriate response to being completely forgiven and free of the guilt of our sins

2.      It is what Jesus commanded us to do – to love others with all our heart

3.      There is no doubt our giving will be reckoned to us at the day of judgement.

4.      We fulfil God’s perfect design for our world when we give

If you’re giving only out of guilt or have to, I urge you to spend some time asking God to change your heart.  We are given so, so much by God, that it is our response of gratitude that enables us to give to others – of our time, of our talent, and of our money.  And if not directly, find someone or your church, through whom you bless others in our world.

Have a great week everyone.