Leadership gains authority and respect when the voiceless poor are treated fairly.
Proverbs 29:14 MSG
A man holds a cardboard sign reading Need Cash at the traffic light. A woman evicted from her home camps out in her car. A huddling cluster of schoolchildren wolf down their cafeteria food, a telltale sign they aren’t being fed at home.
These scenarios are only a tiny sampling of the face of poverty in this world. How can you help them all? It seems impossible. And yet the Bible says over and over that you are to watch out for the poor. How do you live? What do you do?
The enemy would like you to try to run here and there frantically trying to help everyone. And after a short time, you would undoubtedly be overcome with exhaustion. You might even give up entirely, which would be Satan’s strategy all along.
So, how can you have a good conscience in a poverty-stricken world? Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you every day in knowing who you are to help and those who are to receive help from other generous hearts. It’s the only way to live—not by your own wisdom and wits but by abiding in God and living out His perfect plan.
Lord Jesus, give me a compassionate heart for the poor and give me the discernment to know which sojourners I am to help along the path. Amen.
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Today’s reading was adapted from Daily Wisdom for Women: 2018 Devotional Collection with permission from Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reading was written by Hillary McMullen.