HELPING OTHERS

“I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”(Stephen Grellet)

I have tried to live by this from the day that I first found these words: “For I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’”

My baby girl Branden has always gotten up in the middle of the night to fix my lunch, fill my Thermos with coffee and send me on my way to work. After work, I would often come home starved. I don’t remember when she figured it out and finally asked me why I gave away my lunch. My answer at that time was, “I know that I’m coming home every day, and every day there will be something for me to eat.” I later shared with my daughter that with all the wrong things that I have done in my life and must answer to on the day that the sunset will surely come, I fear the most to hear Jesus say to me that “You did not give to the least of these.”

With my job, I am always out on the road, so the opportunity to help someone is always there. I always give away the food to someone who is homeless or hungry because my family and I have been both. Branden is older now and understands how I feel and continues to fix my lunch, and there is always extra in it for me to share. I imagine the apostle Paul saying: “This is my sister who has quoted me always; for I don’t have much but what little I have is yours.”

— Danny James

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist