How to serve the poor in a meaningful way

I was having lunch this week with a friend of mine who was disillusioned. "Why should I care anymore?" She said. "I've done everything I know how and she's just not taking any initiative."

This woman from my church was talking about her efforts to reach out to someone in need. She'd helped another lady in many ways. She provided rent. Emotional and spiritual support. She'd found a doctor to look at a medical condition. She'd done everything imaginable. Gone the extra mile. Only to be let down over and over again by someone who doesn't know how to help herself and suffers from depression.

And that's the way it goes.

As Christians we are called time and time again to serve the poor. We are to care for God's most vulnerable children (Isaiah 58, Matthew 25, Luke 4 just to give a few examples of important Bible passages which address this clearly).

But how can we keep our sanity? How can we avoid being discouraged? How can we serve the poor without feeling pain?

The short answer is we cannot. Unless their pain becomes our pain then we aren't fully in. And if we aren't fully in, then we aren't really serving them. We are just offering a little bit of charity. Nothing wrong with charity, but it isn't what Christians are called to. We are called to change the world.