A Hungry Boy

Pretend with me for a moment, will you?


You are on a trip by yourself to visit an old friend, and you stop for lunch to eat at this little country diner on the side of the road in no place special. You decide to eat at the counter. As you are perusing the menu, something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye. It’s a little boy with his hands and face pressed against the glass looking inside at the customers. You put your menu down as you watch the little boy’s eyes go from table to table. He can’t be more than 7 or 8. The waitress comes up to take your order, “What will it be, Hon?”

“Tell me about the little boy at the window. Do you know him? Is he looking for his parents?”

“No. He’s a neighborhood kid.”

“Well, why is he at the window?”

“I’ll tell the cook to shoo him away.”

“No, don’t do that. Just tell me why he’s there,” you say.

“I don’t know the whole story, but he’s probably hungry. I’ve seen him going through our dumpster and eating the food out of it.”

You are horrified. Where’s his momma? Why doesn’t he have food at home? You have so many questions, but the waitress has turned to go take another order. You step down from your stool and walk outside. “Will you do me a favor?” you ask. “I don’t like eating alone. Would you be my guest? You sure would be helping me out if you would.”

Shyly the boy follows you into the diner, and you show him where the restroom is so he can wash up. He returns, and you begin asking him what he’d like to eat. You place the order.

Is that something you could see yourself doing? I could see myself doing that very easily.

But what if the one peering in the window isn’t a little boy but a homeless person, a person who has been beaten up by the world and been spit out on the curb? What if the person looking in the window is a woman who has bruises on her face and arms? What if the person was covered with tattoos and piercings? How does your answer change? “Well, I’d be worried about my security.” You are in a very public place. There are still ways to get a meal to that person standing on the outside of the window.

God creates every human being on this planet the same way as the next. The ground at the base of the cross is LEVEL. “For ALL have sinned,” Romans says. They may have made bad decisions in their lives that brought them to this point, but they might not have. WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE? If God leads you to a person to whom you are to minister, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OBEYING. He is responsible for everything else. I challenge you to read Matthew 25:34-45, and then I challenge you to pray and ask God to open your eyes to see those in front of you, so you may see them the way He sees them. If you pray this, He will answer, and if He answers then you will become responsible to act.

Serving as He leads requires us to see the people He puts in front of us the way He sees them and then to minister to them as He leads us. What happens next is all up to Him…What will you allow Him to do through you?