What if...??

I got thinking yesterday after a girl came up to on the train asking for $2. She was supposedly homeless and living on the streets.

I didn't give.

In situations like this, I always wonder what the "right" response to that is. The thought of that old slogan "what would Jesus do - WWJD" ALWAYS pops into my head. It may be a little old and a little cheesy, heck i even had shoelaces with it on it but I'm always prompted to think about it.

I never seem to know really what he would've done. After i said i had nothing (whilst all along i had coins in my wallet) i really began to feel bad - this ALWAYS happens to me and i wish that there was something i could do to help, it even made the excitement of making a project disappear and it made me stop and think after i had been rushing around frantically. It even made me forget that i was sick and just wanted to go home to my unheated house, but at least shielded from the cold outside winds. So my mind starting thinking about it, as it does and i started thinking of possible answers i could have given that would've enabled me to keep my coins but helped her in some way as i don't believe money solves a problem - especially for a street kid. It even had me thinking about the issue of begging and how much harder homeless people would have to beg because of all the negative media influences about making a weatlhy living off the streets and being "homeless". It might be easy for the media to speak negatively of it and draw attention to it, making people reconsider giving but they already have jobs and they're live in comfortable houses what's it to them if street people continue to live in poverty?

One thought that came to my mind was this. Imagine if we re-visited the scene. I was sitting there with my belongings. The girl asked me "scuse me ma'am, have you got $2 for a homeless person living on the streets?". What if (and that's the line that always haunts me) i said to her, "if you sit next to me (and there was a spare seat - maybe God planned it that way?) and tell me what it is exactly that you need the money for i might be able to help you with something". What if she had a story to tell, what if she just needed someone to listen to her, what if i could've bought her a train ticket, what if i could've shared a meal with her, what if i had made a lifelong friendship with that girl and seen her possibly grow into more than she ever realised or expected she could be and what if she possibly even got to know God personally because i had taken the time to ask her to sit with me?

I am constantly having to deal with "What if's" and having to live with myself because my life is filled with "What if's".

To have asked her to sit with me and chat may have seemed like a ridiculous, hideous thing to have done and it surely would've have received some inquisitive and horrendous glances at the time but if Jesus had of been in that situation, would he have thought so? Would he have even cared? I doubt it.

My prayers were full of requests that night. God please give me more faith to step out even when i think a situation is slightly comical and a tv show could be made out of my wild imagination. Give me just that small amount of courage and faith so you can do your thing.

I guess it kept my mind busy for the rest of the trip home but that didn't solve anything much. I suppose i'll just have to wait and see how i react the next time i am presented with a "what if" situation, relying on God to give me the guts i need to step out and do something other people would consider a little out of the ordinary. Like a good friend of mine says - just an ordinary person with an extraordinary God, would make sense to follow in his extraodinary ways, wouldn't it?!

Tink xoxo