Incomplete thoughts on poverty, part 3

I am going to warn you, my thought process is all over the place in this post. If that doesn't scare you off, at least consider yourself warned.

I have some friends who are going through hard times right now. I think about them often, even have some reminders set up so that throughout my day I can stop and pray for them. For one, I just got done writing them a quick email to let them know they were in my thoughts and prayers.

I didn't send the email for quite a while because I wasn't sure if it would make any difference.

Have you ever wondered that? Like, if you are going through a hard time does it mean anything if you get 4 people saying they are praying for you verses 40? I guess that's kind of extreme. Maybe I am weird, but there are certain people I EXPECT to hear from and then the others are nice. What kind of a judgmental creep does this make me?!

Maybe this comes from my years as a pastor where I would go do hospital calls (when they made me) and people would thank me for coming but want to know when the senior pastor was coming. Like I brought the JV prayer squad but they can't wait for the All Pro. But I know I've acted that way before too.

So then I wondered if I was sending the email because it made me feel better. Like in some water cooler conversation someone would ask if I had heard about the situation and I could now self-righteously comment "Yeah, I sent them an email." and the other people would be shamed at their sinfulness or amazed at my piety.

Now the reality is not every need I hear about I can personally respond nor do people want me to. There are people in my life though the moment something hits the fan I will drop everything to be there with them. For others, I mourn, grieve, hurt or sympathize from a distance.

On a separate but related issue(at least in my mind), I wonder about those that we try to serve that are needy. Maybe I am confessing that much of my "selfless service" is a lot more selfish than I want to admit. I just wonder if our way of caring for them or letting them know we are aware of their need is done in a way that they can appreciate or that really speaks to the situation.

Sure, we respond but we've done so on our schedule and in some level of convenience to us. I always think of Job's friends who drop everything and come and just sit. They don't talk, they just sit in some sort of quiet solidarity.

I guess what I'm saying is what we've heard a number of times, that we too quickly say things like I'll pray for you or you are in my thoughts. What if those words meant as much to the person as they do to us when we say them. I'm willing to admit if you are that I've told someone I will pray for them and then never done it.

So how do we raise the conversation out of the christianese and into reality that is meaningful and helpful. In the meantime, I'll keep praying for my friends and doing my best to mean what I say.