Don't Do Nothing

We pass homeless person in the city, pushing an old shopping cart filled with all his worldly goods. His eyes are vacant and he shuffles listlessly along the sidewalk. He doesn't have anywhere to go and who knows if he will have anything for dinner. His home is on a park bench, or maybe the doorway of a store. We walk past on the other side of the street, trying not to stare at his dirty clothes and long, matted hair.

We turn away, trying not to look, and return to our cozy homes, filled with lovely possessions. There we can forget that some people don't have homes.

We get a missions magazine through the mail. On the front cover is a picture of a little girl. She has straggly black hair falling over a dirty face and she sucks one thumb as she leans round the doorway of her corrugated-iron and cardboard shanty. Her top is too big and has a hole in it and her skirt is far too short. She wouldn't even know what to do with a pair of shoes. The shelter made out of trash, which is the only home she's ever known, is falling to pieces and is surround by old rusty cycles and mounds of garbage.

We put the magazine away before rushing out the door to visit a friend. We talk about the new shoes we bought last week and the church pot-luck dinner coming up on Sunday. There we can forget that some people don't have shoes to wear and take their pickings from the city garbage dump.

Pictures in a magazine, on a notice-board, on our city streets and on our websites are so easy to walk away from and forget. It makes us feel uncomfortable, so we push it to the back of our mind.

Maybe we spend a few minutes of compassion, wishing we could do something to help ... just something. But there are so many people out there who need help and we can't do it all. We get discouraged. Life is busy and in the rush of doing other things, we forget.

Don't let what you cannot do, stop you doing what you can do.

Anything is better then nothing. We can't help the whole of mankind. We can't feed every person who's hungry. We can't house every person who's homeless. We can sponsor a child in Brazil so she can have clothing, schooling and food. We can collect a coke-can of dollars and send them to a mission organization. We can tell other people about an organization that needs support. We can pray for the hobo on the street.

Even if we can't do anything else, we can pray.

If you think you're too small to do anything, you've never slept with a mosquito.

Don't just walk away and forget - do something. Anything. Whatever you do, don't do nothing.