Investing in others

Whoever loves God must also love his brother.    1 John 4:21

Jim Towey had always wanted to meet Mother Teresa, so US Senator Mark Hatfield, the man he worked for, arranged for him to meet the saintly woman when Jim had several days for a stopover in Calcutta. Mother Teresa invited him to visit her Home of the Dying.

Upon his arrival at the home, he told the home director that he was there by invitation of Mother Teresa and was there to see the work. Disregarding his white shirt and tie, the home director handed him some cotton swabs and a bottle of disinfectant. “Here,” she said, “go clean the man with scabies in bed forty-six.”

 Jim tells of this experience. “There wasn’t the slightest bit of me that wanted to touch anybody sick and dying.” He expected to be taken through the home as a VIP, then he would just leave some money and walk away from the unpleasant sights. But Jim was too proud to refuse, so he found bed forty-six and cleaned the dying man’s infected flesh. 

That experience changed his life and his outlook on the suffering of humanity. Jim eventually invested his entire life in the currency of heaven. When we do what Jesus did, we are investing in the bank of heaven. And what did He do? He healed people. He taught. He forgave others. He fed people spiritually and physically. He ministered to the sick and dying. He lifted up the neglected and fallen – the throw-away people of society whom we prefer to ignore rather than touch.

Yes, when we touch the “untouchables” we reach the very heart of God.

Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips. So that your trust may be in the Lord, I teach you today, even you. Have I not written thirty sayings for you, sayings of counsel and knowledge, teaching you true and reliable words, so that you can give sound answers to him who sent you? Proverbs 22:17-21