There is more than one type of homelessness.

In cities across the United States, homeless individuals sleep on park benches, under bridges and on scraps of cardboard stretched out on sidewalks. In the suburbs of my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina, on busy street corners where there’s a traffic light, they hold up tattered, hand-lettered signs telling you they’re hungry and need cash for food. (Occasionally I take food to them, but I never give cash. I’ve seen some of these beggars lugging several six packs of beer out of a Pitt Stop with the money folks gave them for food.)

Yet you haven’t seen poverty and homelessness until you’ve observed it in countries such as India, where millions either live in slums, under bridges or on the streets. I’ve observed acre after acre of shanties in a slum near the Mumbai airport, where large families live in a one-room, bathroom-sized dirt floor “house” with no running water or electricity, their shelter often no more than tin, cardboard or dirty cloths. Outside the small motel where Dolly and I stayed for a few hours between flights, folks slept on the sidewalk, their cardboard “walls” shaped like teepees to keep out intruders and the chill. When we took a taxi to the airport after midnight, scores were hunkered down under the bridge we crossed.

After my third teaching trip to India in 2002, I realized how financially wealthy I am. I complained less about what I had considered to be the meager salary of a Bible college prof. What I had perceived as “meager” is relative. My salary put me in the the top 1% of wealth in the world! Then God’s Spirit shifted my focus to an entirely different type of homelessness: those without assurance of a forever home in heaven. He wants us to minister to the physical needs of the poor in responsible ways, yet He impressed me with the fact that the other kind of poverty is even more tragic.

In the following poem, written in 2003, I describe both kinds of homelessness.

 

HOMELESS

Their estate? In the bag they tote.

Blotches of dirt caked on their coat.

Eyelids droop. It’s night that they dread:

a bench or grass becomes their bed.

 

Their stomach growls. What will they eat?

They scrounge for change along the street,

or search for scraps tossed in the trash

when cost of food exceeds their cash.

 

A heavy heart shows on their face.

No hand to hold. No firm embrace.

No laughter heard in a warm den

when spouse or children saunter in.

 

What pain: to live each day alone.

No family to call their own.

There’s little hope for a fresh start.

No one to fill their empty heart.

_______________

Some are blessed with worldly worth,

yet have not had a second birth.

They lie in comfort, yet some weep;

their heavy hearts cannot find sleep.

No matter how they dress, their heart

is still tattooed with Satan’s art,

not scrubbed clean by Jesus’ blood.

No Spirit there to stem sin’s flood.

 

Stomachs full of meat and bread.

It’s their soul that’s under fed.

They live, without knowing why.

No plan to live after they die.

No purpose in the day’s routine.

No Timeless Truth on which to lean.

 

They experiment with zeal

for ways a Christ-shaped void to fill.

They do not bear the Father’s name;

no divine inheritance to claim.

No larger group of blood-bought kin

to stand with them through thick and thin.

 

When living hurts or brings defeat,

there’s no respite at Jesus’ feet.

Poorer than those who roam the street.

_________________

Think of a family member, a coworker or neighbor without Christ. Plead with God’s Spirit to open the filters of his or her mind to the gospel, to soften this person’s heart so there’s more receptivity when you talk about the Savior. Also ask Him to break your heart for the plight of persons without Jesus.

The next time you see a person on the street corner asking for money, remember the eternal consequences of the other type of homelessness. But please, don’t reach out the car window and hand that person a gospel tract….not unless you first bring him or her a fast food meal from a nearby McDonald’s or Burger King.