Thought for the week: God's people must have compassion to those in need
I was talking recently to a cleaner in one of our hospitals who has emigrated here from the Philippines.
In our conversation, I asked him what the health service was like back in his home country. His reply was immediate and stark. If you are wealthy, there is good health care. If you are poor you are left to die on a heap.
As I reflected on his reply, I began to think about health care - or the lack of it - in so many other countries and situations across the world. Night after night on our TV screens we see the horrors of the non-existent health care for the millions displaced from their homes as a result of war, famine, genocide, natural disasters and oppression.
Add to this the intensity of human misery when there is no sanitation, no water, no food, no education and no hope. And I am always struck very deeply by the actions and words of those who volunteer to work in such situations often at great cost to themselves.
It is so important, yet seems so inadequate in the face of such desperate need, to offer what support we can to the local and national charities who underpin such humanitarian work, often, though not always, in the name of Jesus Christ.
All this has in turn led me to reflect on why we complain so readily when we have so much in comparison with many millions, billions – of other people around the world. Would we ever be content with what we have, even if we are better off this year than 10 years ago?
Is it morally right for us all to expect an ever-increasing standard of living? I am far from convinced that it is, though it must be said that it is an entirely proper aspiration for the many thousands for whom everyday life here in Northern Ireland brings a daily and deeply dehumanising struggle.
Poverty is still very real all around us, and the Bible is crystal clear that God’s people must have active compassionate hearts to all who are in such need.
One of the biggest challenges for me as a practicing Christian is that the Bible teaches me that contentment – even in adverse circumstances - is something to be learned from God.
The Apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the church in Philippi: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength."
Yet, as so many of us know all too well, contentment does not come easily or naturally, and it seems to be a far country when we are in pain, distress, or desperate need.
Yet, surely for many of us, learning to be content when that is appropriate would be a great blessing - rather than immediately complaining or criticising when things go wrong or get difficult. Perspective matters – for there really is no prospect of our dying on a heap.