I work with bums. Literally. Homeless, hungry, nothing-to-their-names, down & out bums. They’ve been one of those scary people you see hanging out in parking lots of convenience stores begging for change.

One actually went around the neighborhood knocking on doors begging for can goods because he was hungry. The other was sitting in a hotel room, trying to find work, his fiancé undergoing chemo for a brain tumor. Another was an unemployed roofer, actually willing to work for food.

Over the years, I’ve worked with several of those type men. For a multitude of reasons, they are unemployed yet willing to work, they are willing to beg because they are hungry (and sadly, they need cigarettes…you’d think that’d be one thing they would give up but the more desperate some get, the more they turn to something).

Last week, I listened as a “pillar of the community” and professed leader in his church go into a tirade about street people. I was stunned. His beliefs were so far from the truth it was a shock that he was uttering those words. I might have expected it from some less educated, from people with no real ties to the community, but this was someone who ought to know better.

…”lazy, don’t want to work, expecting me and you to support them and their habits.”

Could be. I’ve seen some of those folks in the soup kitchen line, and could probably find a dozen con artists, shiftless and lazy bums who not only won’t work but will expend more energy figuring angles than earning a penny

But what about those others?

David was down and out. No work, no food, nothing. He couldn’t pay his rent, utilities, and was down to looking for cigarette butts along the curb. He had zero skills. As a former gang member, about all he knew was a life of violence and drugs, theft and doing what he wanted and taking when he could.

Today, he is a semi-skilled painter, laborer, willing to work even when he doesn’t know the job. I’ve seen him tackle just about anything to earn a living. He’s cleaned up demolished houses, built flower beds, painted whole houses (interior and exterior) and has tried his hand at roofing, sheetrock, and is learning basic carpentry.

In his words: he was given a chance to become something better.

When this so-called pillar of the community finished his little petty tirade, I asked him point blank: is this what you think God wants you to do? Trash talk them so you can ignore them?

His response told me everything I needed to know. “People have to want to help themselves before you can help them.”

Sadly, I walked away. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.

One of my goals has been to do something for someone every day. Some days I can’t do much more than offer a word of encouragement, sometimes a dollar, and occasionally I can really splurge and offer something substantial. But every day, I try.

Don’t become indifferent. Don’t look for excuses. Look for opportunities. There are people out there that really do need and want a hand up, but you have to get out there to find them.

The mission field isn’t in front of the pulpit; it is on the sidewalk just down the street. It’s huddled in the cold house across the way. It’s standing in line at the soup kitchen. It’s where the truly needed are searching for hope.

And it’s up to us to find them, not ignore them.

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