Should I Help or Not?
A few days ago, I was in Asheville, North Carolina with my sister. We pulled up to a stoplight, and a man with no legs sat in a wheelchair, begging for money as cars backed up to turn left.
We talked about how much we wanted to help him—but we weren’t going to give him money.
Hours went by. It rained all day. On our way back home, we turned right at the same intersection and found him still there.
He had been out there all day. In the rain.
I sighed.
I’m like most people. I struggle with this.
A lot.
I want to help. I want to do my part. But giving money just feels wrong.
My heart breaks, yet at the same time I feel like it’s wrong to give him money—and I don’t fully understand why.
Why does it feel wrong?
Is it distrust?
What will he buy—alcohol? Drugs?
Or is it something uglier… the thought that he might actually have more money than me?
After all, he hasn’t been out there all day for nothing.
So which is it?
Is he truly desperate…
or smiling later as he counts his dollar bills?
I’ll never know.
Tough Love
I’m no Bible scholar. No saint. I don’t even go to church. I couldn’t tell you the last time I walked through those doors.
But I believe in something.
It’s complicated—another story for another time.
Still, I like to read. To think. To learn. To try to make the right decisions and do the right things.
In Bible, 2 Corinthians 9:7 says:
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Am I a cheerful giver?
No. I’m reluctant.
And maybe that reluctance exists for a reason.
I once saved this passage, and it’s stayed with me:
“Does this mean we are obligated to give to every beggar we encounter? No, not at all.
The prodigal son may have never come to his senses and returned to the Father if begging had been profitable. It was the fact that no one gave to him that led to his destitution and repentance (Luke 15:11–24).Unlike the prodigal son, many prodigal souls today are kept in their sin—and kept from the pig pen—by well-meaning parents, churches, charities, and government programs.”
That hit me hard.
Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is not intervene.
It’s like a parent who has to leave their child in jail so they can finally learn from their mistakes.
We call it tough love.
We don’t want to watch.
We don’t want to walk past and do nothing.
And yet… sometimes we know it’s the right thing.
Even when it feels so bad.
Maybe that’s the part we’re not supposed to get comfortable with.
