As a truck driver I run into this kind of thing constantly, especially at the truck stops as there is a lot of scamming going on. I have seen people begging for money and then get into a nice car and drive away. Or, I have offered to buy them food and I am turned down flat because all they really want is the cash for drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. One has to carefully balance what we ought to be doing as Christians with the obvious scammers.
Sure, no issue with that. And rightly too, if you know he is a scammer.
On the other hand, we are Christians. People beg because they want assistance to whatever their situation is. Nobody wants to beg if they can help it. It is humiliating and undignified.
Giving a few cents or a dollar will not cost us much but it can make a different to the one who needs it at that particular moment. It is also not for us to tell him to clean the mess in his life. Giving is a virtue and it has to start somewhere.
I used to refuse to give, not because I was not generous but because I thought beggars were lazy and did not want to help themselves. And yes, sometimes, they were not genuine.
One day I was sitting at a cafeteria eating with my daughter. Then came this woman with a child in her arm, obviously asking for sympathy, approached our table and asked for money. I looked at her in disgust and confidently shook my head. She quickly made a beeline out of the cafeteria and disappeared, out of sight.
I came to my senses that whatever her trick was, the child she was carrying was a real child, not any doll or a cat or a dog. I quickly got up from my table to look for her wanting to give her money but she was nowhere to be seen.
Today I lived to regret my action.
I have nothing to lose with a few dollars if the beggar is not bona fide but if he is, I would have missed that chance to be generous to follow what my Lord wants me to do. I remember that what I have is also God’s providence and rightly to be shared, and I can play my part. I don’t have to be Mother Teresa, but in my own small world, there are still many good things that I can do.
Sometimes that cannot wait for me to make that evaluation whether the person who asks for my money is genuine or not. Like that woman, apparently it was quite difficult for her to do it but which she had to do. If I hesitate, I may not get a second chance, as she would be gone.
I think refusing to give a man who comes to our sanctuary, sitting in the pew of our church, asking for a few loose changes, would be quite uncharitable, to say the least. And that is my context in saying this.
