There’s a strangeness in the act of giving. The gesture may appear noble to the onlooker, and indeed, it often feels noble at the outset. We tell ourselves we’re helping; distributing food, handing out coats, making the destitute a little less hungry and cold. We give, often with some strain, believing our time and our toil to be worthwhile, even virtuous.
But if we’re honest, there’s another layer beneath the surface, a suspicion that begins as a whisper and slowly grows into a troubling question: are we truly helping, or are we merely being used?
For some time I’ve wrestled with this. I’ve seen the same faces return week after week, not visibly improved, not aspiring toward self-sufficiency, but rather entrenched in a mode of life that requires constant assistance. And as my hours grew long and the gratitude from others remained minimal or absent, a disillusionment began to grow.
Why should I continue? Why labor for those who will not labor for themselves?
It would be convenient, even reasonable, to conclude that my energy is being squandered. A strict ethic of fairness would suggest as much. If another refuses to make effort, then what obligation have I to make effort on their behalf?
But something in this math rang hollow. It was too clean, too sterile, and entirely devoid of love, of compassion.
This morning, without warning, the problem dissolved. Not because the facts changed but because the meaning did. The realization came quietly but with clarity: the food, the clothing, the bus passes and resources are not the point. They’re incidental. They’re the wrapping, not the gift.
What is truly being offered is something far less measurable and far more lasting: the presence of Christ-like love and compassion.
The weary woman who asks again and again for the same item is not being changed by that item. But perhaps she is changed by being seen and cared for. The young man who could work but does not might nonetheless feel the warmth of an open hand extended without judgment. And in that warmth, something stirs that is not of this world.
Once I understood this, the moral arithmetic shifted. I’m not giving material aid in exchange for transformed behavior. I’m offering a symbol, a sacrament of love, through the humble form of bread and socks and patient listening. If it’s taken advantage of, that’s no matter. Christ Himself was taken advantage of. He healed those who would walk away, fed those who would never return, loved those who would betray Him.
To emulate Him is not to help the deserving but to love indiscriminately.
I’m not excusing sloth, nor am I suggesting that we suspend our capacity to discern wisely. I suggest merely a reorientation.
Some who come to receive help may never rise. That’s their path. But if in their hunger they find love, then something eternal has taken place. And if I grow weary in offering it, that’s a mark of my own frailty, not of their worthiness.
Those who come cloaked in need, even if their need is complicated by choice or habit, will always come. Perhaps by some divine plan. And perhaps the guise of need is the only way they know how to draw near. That is acceptable. More than acceptable, it’s perfect in its own way.
For in drawing near, they make possible the miracle; not the distribution of aid, but the appearance of Grace.
And so, I have ceased to ask who deserves my help. It is no longer relevant. I only ask whether I am willing to love today. The rest, as it always was, is not mine to judge.
Join us in making the world a better place. You’ll be glad that you did.
Cheers friends.