“Don’t cry! More white people will come next week.”

These words exploded in my mind as I struggled with the lock on the back of our rented trailer. I stood breathlessly for a few moments as I attempted to wrap my brain around what God had just spoken to me through an 8-year-old girl from the projects of New Orleans.

All around me, my group of affluent teenagers was crying and holding on to impoverished children they had met only days before and never would see again. For me, time stood still as I froze in the middle of the street, astounded at my own lack of insight. Our church had paid a small fortune to send this group of wealthy teenagers halfway across the country to “change the world.”

We had come to change the world, one person at a time. However, standing in the sweltering Bayou heat, I came to realize the world was changing us…one person at a time. Each person we encountered was a divine appointment from God to teach us what it means to have a heart like His.

Through the years, I have witnessed this scene replayed with the homeless living near the river, with Mexicans living in the desert, with the elderly in assisted living or nursing homes.

In each case, we would spend months preparing to take our “much” and share it with those who had little. As we worked, they gladly took our much and showed us how little it really was.

I once was eating lunch with a friend who made a racial slur against Mexicans, suggesting I hire them to do some work around the house, as they will work for “next to nothing.” Seething, I asked him how he thought he came to live in the United States. How are we so privileged to live in the wealth of the Western world?

He responded with a shrug, as if to say, “Why care? We’re here and that’s all that matters.”

I have to come to call this attitude Manifest Destiny Revised. Whereas our ancestors considered it their obvious destiny to settle the Americas at any cost to the original inhabitants, it seems many people believe it is their manifest destiny to be born into lives of comfort and wealth (from a global perspective) and spend a lifetime hoarding the resources for which the rest of the world is longing.

I struggle to understand why. Divine Providence? Consequences from the fall of man? Bad luck?

How is that fair?

It seems we are left with two choices: arrogance and condescension, or humility and brokenness.

The Have-Nots
On the street in New Orleans that afternoon, there among dirty needles, kids with no underwear or shoes, and memorials to those who had been murdered, God became my Emmanuel. It dawned on me that He had been there all along, long before my group arrived. He was born among the poorest of humankind, lived as a homeless Man and was buried in a borrowed grave. It occurred to me that Jesus cast His lot among the have-nots, and I spent most of my time relaxing with the richest people on the planet.

Seven years have passed as God has led me by His power to establish ministry contexts to help teach His people to love what He loves and hate what He hates. Let me share three major changes God has impressed upon my heart.

Go…To Be a Blessing, Not the Answer
In the West, we live in a culture that measures success by progress made and problems solved. Instead of counting conversions and baptisms, we must commit simply to be present with people in need. If we go thinking we have all of the answers and those we serve have none, we are sorely mistaken and will miss out on our own blessing.

Go…To Be the Hands and Feet of Jesus, Not the Savior
Once we have planted ourselves in the lives of those in need, we can follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit to bring relief to the suffering. When Jesus came among us, He spent His earthly ministry meeting physical needs, as well as spiritual needs. When we take groups into the projects, slums and ghettos of the world, preaching the gospel but not addressing the physical suffering, I believe it is possible we are out of step with the dance of the Holy Spirit.

Go…and Listen More than You Speak
This past summer, I had the opportunity to lead a group of high-school students on a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico. In the months preceding our trip, we considered the implications of meeting with Jesus face to face in the Mexican desert. We gained a greater desire to hear from Jesus through the lives of the poor. That summer, we clearly heard God speak to us while eating homemade tacos in the Mexican desert. Though the language was different, Jesus had no difficulty communicating with us through the lives of a family of six living in a school bus.

God’s Heart
Though I am sure Jesus is present in the ‘burbs, I am learning that He makes His home among the poor, the suffering, the forgotten—the least of these. Through the years, God has taught me about His heart of love through the smiles of the elderly in nursing homes, through the cries of lonely American teenagers displaced in Europe, through the hungry stomachs of the homeless in soup kitchens and through the honest words of an 8-year-old girl in the projects of New Orleans. She still speaks to me today, and she is speaking to you. Who is waiting expectantly for us to come and be the hands, feet and heart of Jesus in their lives of need? May we constantly be searching for places where we can join God as He brings His hope into lives in need of His love!