What do you do when you are presented with "a problem". You go to church each Sunday, listen to amazing sermons, give to missions as you feel you can, and feel by doing so you are doing your bit to help the world. Everyone around you is blessed with family and friends, finances, jobs. Trouble seems far away.
Then one day a nondescript man with frightened eyes walks in to the church service, shoulders bowed with the weight of the world, shuffling in and no-one really notices. A man who walks with a limp, he carries a rough-hewn cane, he gives off a faint odour as he hasn't washed his clothes for weeks. His ears are crusty and his hair is mussy and his hands are calloused and rough from work. The man gives himself to God: to the Son and the Father. It's been so long since he thought about God. He asks for prayer for healing. He feels God's presence around him, that something is different when he walked into this church. After the church service, instead of being welcomed, he is ignored, or stared at, from the corner of eyes which are averted when he turns around. He wanders off. During the weeks to come he pays the church a visit, to relax and pray and worship, to try and relive that amazing experience of being in church again after such a long absence, to feel part of community again. He used to have a family and a job, and now he is alone after misfortune after misfortune. Would the people who ignore him act differently if they knew he was in fact an eccentric millionaire? Or if they knew he had an intellectual disability? What happens when he returns to the church and is roughly criticised for breaking unspoken norms? Will he be angry? Will he be hurt? Will he quietly disappear, or will he seethe his frustration? Would some human kindness craft a better outcome?
This is just a story. What do we do when a problem actually presents, for example in a person? Is this person running from something, or not? Is he rich, or poor? What is his story? Remember you must never assume! Observe and read between the lines to see what he is saying, that words alone cannot say. Do we try to ignore the person, hoping he will go away, and become someone else's problem? I remember as a child seeing stray dogs chased away, dogs searching for some kind hand. People did not want the problem of those dogs. Where did they go? "Out of sight, out of mind". It was for someone else to worry about. Did some dogs turn and attack when chased? - I can't remember. When problems arise, is this an opportunity God is sending so we may make a difference to someone else? Instead of ignoring a person, what would happen if we instead said "hello", and smiled? We might not change the person's poverty situation, but perhaps we would help with acceptance, to show the world is not such a lonely place. As Mother Teresa said: "loneliness is the worst kind of poverty". And in the words of "We Are The World": "send them your heart, so they know that someone cares, so their lives will be stronger and free".
I've ignored people in this situation. What would happen if I saw such problems as opportunities instead, as hinge moments? I resolve to make a difference to someone else in future when I get given the gift of opportunity...
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