Baby, It's Cold Inside (People's Hearts)

At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

I'm not one that likes to point out sin. I don't think that most of the time it turns a person to God. I think pointing a person towards God's love works so much better. But this week, a couple of things happened and a friend of mine reminded me of the above scripture. Unfortunately, I saw it in action.

I was at the grocery store when I saw someone I haven't seen since, well, last winter around this time. He is by nature a fairly gloomy sort of person and I'm okay with that in most people. People have tough lives and it does make them "out of sorts", but this man's attitude makes my eye twitch so bad that I'm afraid it (my eye) will some day just shoot right out of the socket and hit in the head!

He had come to see me for food for the first time about five years ago. For those that don't know, I'm the director of a food pantry that serves people struggling in this difficult economy. When I pointed out the pre-packed bags and told him to pick one he took one look and said "There's nothing in these bags I want."

Hmmmmm. Really?

I don't expect a pat on the back or even a thank you, but this was just unappreciation. I said, "It's free food."

He looked startled and said, "Oh...um...okay," picked up a bag and walked out.

At the grocery store the other day, I found that not only hasn't he changed, he's apparently worse. He asked me when our Christmas give away was. I told him that we were not really having a special food give away for Christmas. Our resource for turkeys had dried up and I wasn't sure I would be able to give everyone a turkey like I have in the past. I told him I did have chickens though and I thought everyone would get a chicken.

"I'm sick of chicken," he grumbled. "It's all I've been eating and if I eat another one I'm going to be sick."

Hmmmmmm. Really?

"It sounds like you don't need anything, then." I said. He sort of cleared his throat and then said, "Everyone's been giving me chickens." (He wanted me to know that he didn't really have the money to BUY the chickens, so I would know that he WAS in need.) He continued to go on about how all people give him is chicken. He's so tired of eating chicken.

This is serious unappreciation. Apparently, he did not work for this food, it was handed to him and instead of showing thankfulness, he pretty much was spittin' in their eye!

I told him the date and time of our next food give away, bit my tongue, controlling what I WANTED to say, walked out of the store and drove home complaining to God.

Now, please understand. This is NOT the attitude of the people I serve, for the most part. Most of them will thank me over and over. Some will even give me a hug. That happened twice this week when I was able to help someone with their utility bills. Most people who are in need show great appreciation and are grateful for anything anyone can do for them.

This guy is amongst the few. This guy has a bitter and cold heart.

But, he's not the only one. Something else happened this week in Youngstown that unfortunately proves we are dealing many times with cold hearts.

A man drove up to the drive-thru at a McDonald's at 1:00 AM. The person working the window noticed something about the man's car. There was a set of legs hanging out of the back of the vehicle. The McDonald's employee told the man. He got out of his car, walked around the back and looked. Then, he got back into his car, and sped out of the drive-thru, dragging this person two or more blocks. The police followed the blood path and found the young man in the road a few blocks away. He lived three more hours. They could only identify him because of his tattoos. He was 22 years old and had frequented the place where I worked. I remembered him vaguely as someone who was respectful to our workers. He lived across the street from me.

A very frigid, cold heart was in the drive thru at McDonald's that Saturday.

They are everywhere. This past weekend, the largest shopping weekend of the year, called "Black Friday", the blackness of men's hearts was seen across the country when a Walmart opened it's doors early on Friday morning and the crowd trampled a man to death and then proceeded to step over his body to buy their new digital cameras and large screen TV's. No one stopped to help the man. I heard that when they tried to shut down the store because it was a crime scene, people complained because they couldn't finish their shopping.

Well, Fa la la la la la la la la. Something (or someone) other than the halls needed decked!

I also read on line a couple of weeks ago, that when a football team, (I believe it was the Miami Dolphins? Is that a team?) tried to give turkeys to a group of homeless and poor people that the people were so disgusted with the athletes' losing streak that they turned their noses up at the team's generosity and walked away. The shelter had to ask the team to leave, so that the crowd would accept the food that they needed.

How dark and black were these people's hearts? Is there hope for such as these?

There just may be. FOX TV recently aired a new show called "Secret Millionaire". On this reality show, multi-millionaires disguise themselves as everyday Joe's and step out of their shiny, glitzy bubbles for one week and live among everyday people. The two episodes I watched they lived with people who were incredibly poor or living in very challenging circumstances.

By the end of the week, in both episodes, both sets of multi-millionaires were in awe of these people. The things they endured everyday, the strength they displayed, and the kindness and compassion that they showed their fellow man. The fun thing is, they have an opportunity to go back and tell these people that they lied to them....they weren't every day shmoes, they were actually multi-millionaires and then handed them checks ranging from $25,000 to $100,000.

Yes, Virginia, people's hearts can softened. There is hope.

As the church, what is our responsibility here? I know I've prayed for God to soften people's hearts....but being that God has given us freedom of choice....would he DO that? Or is it OUR job to ask God to help us in this? Do we become proactive in looking for opportunities to stretch and soften our own hearts? Do we look for ways to change? Do we step outside of OUR shiny church bubbles and look for ways to help our fellow man? Even if it's NOT Christmas?

What do you think?