Homeless

Homeless

3/18/19

To everyone that has concerns, this topic is one of the ones that will always be on top of the list.  Homelessness is all around us and each day we encounter such travails and we must ask ourselves if there is any other placement that is more worrisome.  While this is a great concern of our physical world we must include the spiritual homeless aspect of our existence as far greater than just the physical; however, there are a great many of us who are involved in both sequences even though both are unnecessary.  God and His Ways are the only way to resolve both conditions and set our feet and lives back on true ground as we were designed to exist but as long as we listen to the world and its repulsive standards this homeless condition of ours shall not only continue but grow and intensify on a pace that can only be described as mind-boggling.  Return to God and He promises to restore our land and our lives to a peaceful structure that is unspeakable in nature and in Truth.

The first time I ever heard about people being homeless on a “large” scale was back in 1980 shortly after the nation’s presidential election.  My parents and I were living in Cleveland, Texas a short drive north from Houston, Texas.  Cleveland is a small community with a great living standard and all around great place to be raised and the experiences and memories I have there still flood my heart today.  One of the political parties continually made reference to the people in Houston as the bridge people for there were many people (families) that had fallen on hard times coming out of the later 1970s and were having a difficult time finding work and regaining their foothold on society and living standards.  There was nothing funny about these unfortunate few and after a while the ones who were willing to work and try to reestablish themselves within the working ranks did so and ended up quite well, but it took guts for the homeless people to try and it also took courage for those companies to accept the risk of hiring “unacceptable” workers as well.  The process was deemed a huge success but at the same time publicity of such was kept at a minimum due to political differences, a sad day in our nation’s history but one that has grown exponentially ever since.

In both my wife’s place of work and my place as well we continually are witness to the unfortunate people of this nation.  It is common for both of our workforces to encounter the ones who are down on their luck or in many cases nowadays refuse to work for their lives are “better off” without contribution as they proclaim it to be.  How many times during the week do all of us encounter such folks or hear about how the homeless population is increasing in our areas of living?  These types of stories and examples are all over the place and if one decides to investigate such settings they are easily found in journals, magazines or any other type book or internet source and it is not hard to find sources and conditions for such.  But what irks me the most about this scene is that there are vast numbers of homeless people that really have no reason to be “homeless”.  Just in my small community now, there have been some who have spent many hours of many weeks sitting or standing on corners around our town holding signs and letting people know that they are in need.  However, many people have shunned them because as they pass by them standing on the corner, there are two or three signs out by the road that businesses are asking for help.  It is a hard stance to take when one is supposed to be hungry yet denying their responsibility to support themselves through work, just a mere few yards from their stance.

When my father and I went to Haiti for a look around it was weird to have a feeling of sympathy for some and not for others.  After a while, the person we were with explained to us that many would beg on the streets for real causes and others would do the same job for the Voodoo Church.  The requirements for such offerings would be that mothers would break the arms and/or legs of their children in order to make them better beggars and then bring in more money from the more fortunate or from tourists who did not know better.  To make oneself a better beggar in order to provide a profit for another organization is appalling but to complete such a task as a way of life for individual profit here in this country is just as shameful.  This is no way a person should be treated especially from a parent; really, one wants to make another person a better beggar?

A few years ago I traveled to SE Texas for my niece’s college graduation and when I was on the way back I had to go through Dallas at rush hour.  It was not a pleasant situation and would have been more frightening if I was not familiar with the route and where my turns were going to be, but as I sat in a line on the “soup” side of downtown I noticed that there was a man standing on the side of the road in the median area.  He had a 2-liter plastic bottle in his hand and he was not really doing much either.  I was confused for a bit but all of a sudden the person in the car in front of me stuck out their hand and as we slowly approached the man he walked up to the car and the occupant dropped money into the bottle. 

It became obvious to me that the man standing there was doing so purposely for he knew that at certain times of the day the traffic would bog down so much that he would have an opportunity to gain some cash from motorists sitting there waiting to pass the area.  At first, I was confused about what I had witnessed but as I passed by the area I thought to myself that this man knew exactly what he was doing and that instead of working his way up a ladder he was directly taking from others at his convenience do to others’ working projections.  Besides a few dangerous hazards, the man had a perfect racket going for the audience was forced to address his presence and were captive at the same time, the risks he took were totally of an unorthodox nature and one that most would deem grotesque but a beggar he was and a beggar he chose to be.  While placing himself in an obvious category of homelessness, he was representing the perfect example of prostitution to those who drove by and believed they needed to satisfy his desire to make ends meet.

We have a great example of this setting in the Bible and it comes to us from a very familiar passage that God has referenced many times so far in the topics He has given me to write.  It is in Genesis 3:23-24 as it reads as follows: “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.  So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”  What a gripping verse this is and it is definitive about what occurs when we do not obey the commands of God, yet humanity continues to believe that it knows better than God and will stop at nothing to stride with God as His equal.  This concept of ours is a fallible and deadly lie that Adam and Eve fell for and proves that unless we figure out God’s Word is for us today we shall soon be homeless as well.  It is a common story of the beauty and grace that Adam and Eve lived in while their inhabitance was located in the Garden of Eden but many stop their sermons and lessons there, with no cause for alarm I might add.  However, there is another part of the story that we must keep close to our hearts and that is what occurred to Adam and Eve after God leveled the playing field again and that was where Adam and Eve were going to live.

It was clear that they could no longer live in the perfect place God had designed for their separation from the world, so, on like terms He had no choice to move them from the Garden of Eden.  This seems harsh and a hard line to stand firm upon but we cannot forget that God is a complete and Holy God and one that cannot waiver on any level.  It is true that these lines of God can be confusing at times but we must understand that these lines of His are drawn for our own protection and should be deemed off limits for if we choose to cross them then it becomes God’s responsibility to discipline us as He sees fit.  Adam and Eve became the first people to become homeless due to their beliefs that their choices were better than God’s.  Humanity has been struggling with this truth ever since and until we figure out that we cannot live properly without God being first in our lives, this phenomenon shall continue and even grossly elevate.

Up until the moment sin entered into our lives, humans had no care in the world when it came to living and the conditions that accompanied such perfection.  After that point of selfish thoughts, the tables were turned and wondering where and how to live was foremost on our minds and an initiative that had to be dealt with before any other reasoning could take place or be accomplished.  We have been struggling to achieve this fact ever since that time and it is amazing that no denominational church organization has figured this truth out, I guess we have allowed ourselves to be blinded enough with worldly order that we would rather pass the buck to society instead of addressing the TRUTH about why so many live in such helpless conditions.  It is through our own choices that individuals, towns, cities, and nations have become homeless both in the physical sense and the spiritual sense.  Adam and Eve lost both when they sinned and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, it was NOT God’s choice for them to choose sin it was theirs.  It was NOT God’s choice to have their lives live in pain and turmoil, it was theirs.  Today, it is still NOT God’s choice for His prized creations to live in such filth and agony but it is ours!  What we tend to forget sometimes is that God is our provider for everything and this includes having a home and a peaceful one at that.  Adam and Eve had such a place when they wanted to keep the command of God intact.

Why have the churches and the Church herself stopped teaching this truth?  The principle is right there in black and white yet we ignore its wisdom for other alternatives and opportunities that the world offers?  Hello!!! Why is it so difficult for us to see that we are following in the footsteps of Adam and Eve instead of keeping and willingly adhering to the Ways of God?  We are actually promoting such evil and residing in a death cell according to our own choices.  This is another example of how the Church has embraced the ways of the world and as long as we choose to promote worldly ways as solutions to our problems our conditions are only going to continue to bleed out sorrow and hatred.  Our problems shall only increase and the physical homelessness of our societies will have no option but to follow suit as well, but this status can change and turn around if we only figure out that if we return to God and to His Ways our lives will be restored and become prosperous again.  God separated Adam and Eve from the sinful place and their lives resembled such perfection and even though we can never return to Eden on earth our lives can be fulfilling and loving through the living conditions God provides.

The philosophies of the world can only provide such active statements and dreams but shall prosper in such admissions for their options are limited and finite in nature.  They sound good and wonderful but when it comes down to the task of discharging such promises they always fall far short of the required amounts needed.  But God has never been short on fulfilling His promises and He has never been late on His deliveries.  We cannot deny that as long as Adam and Eve lived without and separated from sin their needs were continually provided and they lacked nothing.  They had a physical home and a spiritual home that did not take away from them but gave to them.  1 Peter 5:6-7 gives us the answer as to what we need to do in order to lose our physical and spiritual homelessness because when we cast our cares upon God He takes away these homeless situations and provides us with His mercies once again.

How can those who are in desperate need of a home understand this Truth if the ones who are supposed to show them this information is not themselves believing and thus living in the manner in which to honestly provide such corrective navigation?  1 Peter 5:7 clearly states that if we want to live in the manner in which God established our lives to live under first then there is only one way back to this state of living and that is to cast all cares on Him and not the world.  The Church has been lied to long enough that she now teaches that the world and its practices are not that bad and that the world provides a viable option for such iniquities.  It is a fact that our physical lives must exist on this earth but in no way are we to succumb or confide with the ways of the world, God is our foundation and His Word should be our foundation and everything that His Word states are our foundation, NOT the world. 

Church when you promote the world and its ways, you are directly contradicting God, His Word, and His definition thus promoting homelessness.  Adam and Eve did not have to worry about a home when they were living in obedience to the single command of God it was when they began to allow the ruler of the world infiltrate their lives long enough to convince them that their way of thinking and believing was perfectly fine and that God was keeping things from them.  Adam and Eve’s eternal home was secure before the fall as well which means that when one aspect of our lives is compromised the other aspect follows, it is a natural pattern and one that was present when the Garden of Eden was alive and well and it is still intact and functioning today.  This means that as long as we are not right with God we are subject to becoming homeless both in spirit and in the physical.  The next time you come into contact with a homeless person in your town or city asks them if they go to church and see what kind of response you receive.  It all fits together folks and if we do not turn our hearts back to God and repent our nation is going to completely fall and there will be countless numbers of people who are homeless as well as spiritually homeless.

Church, how can we even think about offering the world to those who are in need?  It is the world that brought them thee to this state in the first place, so why are we offering destruction and death as an option to their destruction and death?  Abuse upon abuse is not the answer for the issues that stagger our lives and if a limited and finite conclusion is what we only know to offer, then we might as well just close the doors to the Church herself because we have no purpose any longer.  Offering spiritual homelessness is a grotesque gesture at best and is one that should be immediately rebuked by those who see this act being shifted out to those who are seeking help.  Yes, the physical aspect of being homeless is important but if the Church stops at this point alone it is meaningless because what you are not doing is eternally giving them a home.  God understands that our physical lives cannot be saved as we know it but it is our eternal home that is at stake and if we do not teach this Truth to those in need, our mission has failed and rendered just as dead as an eternal separation from God.

Whether we like it or not, being homeless is a Kingdom issue and principle, and one that needs to be readily accepted in order for us to adequately witness to those who do not know God.  We cannot afford to forget that God was the One who gave humans their first home and set the mark for all other homes to be given, God has not changed in any manner and neither has His standard for home providing and making either.  It is imperative that we open our spiritual hearts so that God can change our hearts supernaturally so that we may show those who are eternally homeless that God has a home for us.  We can only do this by accepting God as our Savior and to turn our hearts to Him in all things, forsaking the world on all levels, and proclaiming the Gospel of His Son to all creatures.  We do not wish to see any person or family being left out in the cold and it should be our eternal passion not to see one person or family left out of their eternal home either.  We may be descendants of Adam and Eve but we do not have to follow exactly in their footsteps either, we can choose to keep God first and He shall worry about all other things in our lives.

DLB