Do you think its right or would you................?

Question

give money to a homeless person or a panhandler on the street? How do you feel or think about these peoples? Do you think that perhaps they are quite capable of helping themselves? Do you believe that their circumstances are entirely their own fault and they deserve everything that happens to them? How would you help out a street person if you ever meet up with one who asks for your help?

Answer 1

The answer to this question 100 percent revolves on what is placed on my heart for this particular person at that particular time and place.

We cannot rely on our own understanding of any other person and their circumstances. God gives us heartstrings, compulsions, etc, when he wants us to obey him and do something for someone else, poor or rich, nice or mean.

Here is a small story that I heard just recently about being convicted to help another.
A woman came home with dinner from a take out and saw two men going through her garbage in the back yard. She felt compelled to go outside and offer them the dinner that she had just brought home with her. After she went back inside her home and started to make a dinner for her family, she felt another tug on her heart. She was being led to give the cash she had in her purse to these same two men.

She went back outside and they were both still there, eating,.
SHe gave each one a twenty dollar bill and went back inside.

That was the end of the story for her. She felt no more conviction to do more for these two men.

10 years after this event, there was a knock on her door. A man stood on her doorstep and asked her if she remembered him. She said, she was sorry, but no.
He told her about the day she fed him and gave him a twenty dollar bill.
He said, he went straight to the bar, intending to get drunk with his windfall. At the bar, he met a lady who ministered to him, and that night he asked Jesus CHrist into his heart.

10 years later, he is cleaned up, holding a job and married with a child on the way, and getting ready to go on a missionary trip. He said he felt the need to go back and thank her for the twenty bucks. IT changed his life, even though neither one knew just how that would happen or when .

It just reminds us that our plans have no bearing on Gods plans. We may think that a situation is hopeless, or that a person could care less about the state that they are in, or even think that they want to be in that situation. God knows the truth about all of us, and he will bring about the right result and the right time for everyone.

Follow your heart, if it states to do something, do it. if you ignore it, the job will still get done, you will just lose the blessing for it.

Answer 2

I read a book called "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller a while back. It's a book about non-religious thoughts on christian spirituality. Anyway, in the book, Donald said for a while he would go out a few times a week and take a homeless person out to lunch and talk with them or give them money. I think it's always a good idea to do this kind of thing. I don't think that's what they deserve. No one deserves to live on the streets. I just wouldn't go at night or anything like that. But anyway, just my thoughts. I suggest reading the book, it's really good.

Answer 3

I would probably not give to a person on the street. I would however try to give to organizations that can help these people more than I can. They are all individuals. Some of them are there because they have messed up thier lives through alchohol /drugs. But there are a lot of people in this country that are living from paycheck to paycheck and if something happened to them physicaly so that they could not work they would lose everything. Once a person gets that low financially it is almost impossible to get back on ones feet without help.
Any money I have extra goes to help my kids who are in college and that has not been much.

Answer 4

We can't ever know how hard these people have tried... nor how lazy.

Sparing some money won't hurt unless they use it to do so, in which case it is their own conscience, not yours.

For some, it is circumstances... for others, it is laziness. To the person who mentioned 'Now Hiring' signs behind the homeless people, consider how businesses operate. Do you think they want to accept someone who looks like that? Aesthetics are, unfortunately, a top priority of companies...

Answer 5

I have handed money to panhandlers and I have ignore them. I believe if you are lead to give give no matter what the circumstance or the person. Would you not give to a rich person if they forgot their wallet and was at the gas pump and not enough gas to get home? Come on the is the whole point in giving....they can not repay you and you don't want them to.

Answer 6

Yes, I have helped out a homeless person many times before, and I've also looked away and walked by. If I have learned anything in the 27 years I've been on this earth, it's that we all are a couple pay checks from being out on the street and that we can't judge other's. We don't know their story.

Answer 7

I would pray with them. If I had a blanket or extra coat I would give it to them.Maybe buy them a sandwich. Jesus said to love your neighbor and enemies. He also said to help those in need. I also believe that if you give them money, it will not help them. They have to change the way they think and their outlook on life. We just talked about this kind of thing at church a couple of weeks ago. I do believe that alot of homeless have been blinded(if I can put it that way) There are alot of homeless people that you wouldn't even be able to tell that they were. I do believe that people need to reach out to them and show them God's grace!

Answer 8

Almost everytime Ive seen a homeless person on the street w/ a sign asking for money, there's another sign that says NOW HIREING right behind them (fast food place, or the like). so no, i dont give to them.

BUT, i have given money to some. They were entertaining. Playing music, doing magic tricks, etc... they were WORKING for it, not just asking for a handout. ya know?

Answer 9

Sometimes I say no, sometimes I give them money, sometimes I give them my lunch.

Yes, I wonder if they are conning me or not. But I think most of them just don't have it upstairs enough to keep a job. Many are mentally ill or alcoholics or drug abusers. Some are just constant lousy decision makers, too stubborn to listen to others. And some (I think a small majority) are just down on their luck. They are usually at agencies trying to get help - not out on the streets asking for money.

(Country: USA)

Answer 10

I have. Most of the people I have given money to do not ask for it. I have knowledge of many of the locals in my area, I know which are capable of work and those that are on the street due to mental illness, etc.