Homeless Chronicles: Naivety To Doubt To Hope (This One’s For Me)

I’m a 23 year old white kid managing a bunch of homeless men twice and three-times my age.  I started this job when I was 21, and  I was very naive back then.

Two years ago, when God began burdening my heart to serve the homeless, I would have fought harshly with anyone who ignored street people because “they’re just a bunch of drunks and druggies.”  Christians who justified their inaction based on stereotypes drove me mad.  I was cynical of churches who built million dollar sanctuaries when people created in the image of God slept on the streets right outside their doors.  I even looked down on myself and thought less of my own faith because I had material things and didn’t struggle like the homeless.

Sometimes I pray that God would make me naive again.

I once thought that to do something radically different to help the homeless was to invite them to my house to sleep in the spare bedroom.  My roommates at the time liked the idea, but we never did it.  And now that I’ve actually worked with the homeless for two years, now that I have seen the reality of men sleeping on park benches, now that I have seen the wounds of men who are attacked because they sleep outside, I would never invite them to sleep in my spare bedroom.  Is that sin on my part?

I used to blindly trust anyone who walked through my office door.  Now I am untrusting of most.  I used to give a dollar to the beggar on the street.  Now I don’t carry cash.  I used to go sit in the park at night with the homeless.  Now I stay safely behind my locked door.

Sometimes I pray that God would make me naive again.

I see men who are slaves to addictions – slaves to pleasure, slaves to drugs, slaves to alcohol, and slaves to what they call freedom.  Two years ago I would have said that those are just stereotypes.  Now I see that those addictions are real, and most of the time I doubt the power of God to free them from their sin.  I doubt that they’ll be able to overcome addictions.  I doubt that they’ll be able to spend their money responsibly.  I doubt that I’ll ever be able to do something to benefit them.

Sometimes I pray that God would make me naive again.

But then I am thankful for my pastor at City Fellowship who reminds me that the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead exists within the church and within believers.  He reminds me that just as I was once a slave to my own sin, the power of God freed me to become a slave of Christ.  He reminds that all the sin and pain and devastation I see in the eyes of my homeless men is only Satan’s death roll in response to his own destruction at the coming of Christ’s kingdom.

I now mostly pray for God’s divine discernment.

I pray that God can take what I’ve seen and experienced over the past few years and use me in a more real and effective way for ministering to the homeless.  I pray that God reminds me that I’ve been entrusted with the gospel in order to share that blessing with those he puts around me.  I pray that God gives me a trusting spirit for those who come through my doors because my only true comfort and safety comes from him.  I pray that God stirs my heart towards compassion rather than hardness.  And I pray for glimpses that the Beast is on his death roll and that God’s grace is being showered on both the just and unjust alike.

And those glimpses come more than I realize.  When a violent man is locked up in jail, I see hope.  When a drunk man puts down his bottle to get shelter, I see hope.  When a hungry homeless man comes through my doors with two grocery sacks to feed everyone breakfast, I see hope.  When my church family can listen to and pray with a homeless man and be burdened by his situation when he leaves, I see hope.  When I remember that Christ gave himself up freely to bear the wrath of God on my behalf and on behalf of those I serve, I am hopeful.

There is hope for me.

There is hope for the homeless.

Thank God.

~ t