Daily Jewel

by pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK
June 8, 2012

“Encourage…Not Enable!”
“A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there, sit back, take it easy—do you know what comes next? Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life, poverty your permanent houseguest!” – Proverbs 6:10-11 (The Message)

“If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” That may sound hard, but the wisdom of the Scripture is seen in the story of one New York man. According to the Associated Press, this thirty-six-year-old resident of New York was quoted as saying, “I like to live decent, I like to be clean.” Nothing wrong with that; the only problem was he did not like to work. So he found other ways to satisfy his cultured tastes.
He would walk into a fine restaurant, order top cuisine and choice liquor, and then when the check arrived, shrug his shoulders and wait for the police. The sometimes homeless man actually wanted to end up in the slammer, where he would get three meals a day and a clean bed. He has pled guilty to stealing a restaurant meal thirty-one times. In 2004 he served ninety days at the Rikers Island jail for filching a meal from a café in Rockefeller Center.
New York taxpayers have paid more than a quarter of a million dollars over five years to feed, clothe, and house one lazy man.
Jesus said it best when He said we would always have the poor among us. Those who are “less fortunate” have been a part of life and probably always will—but as we have been learning over the past few days there is a big difference between the “less-fortunate” and those who are just plain lazy. The difference between the two is how we respond to them. How we approach our assistance or a solution to the “problem.” It is the difference between being encouragers and not enablers.
I have known a great number of individuals through the years that needed help from time-to-time. They were hard working, well-meaning people who did everything in their power just to survive—and even then were unable to make ends meet as the saying goes.
One such couple I will never forget. They were in sixties and because of the bad choices of two of their daughters they were raising three of their grandchildren—one a teenager and two in their pre-teens. She was no longer working due to a bad heart and he was a mechanic working six days a week. Both were hard workers in the church, serving on the Church Board, coming at night to help work on the building—while at the same time trying to help their grandchildren stay in the family. At times, if it were not for the generosity and kindness of people in the church and community, they may have not been able to do what they did. It was certainly not out of effort. To help people like that is not “enabling” them—it is saying we believe in you! On the other side of the coin are those that all of us are all too familiar with. Those who refuse to do anything to help their condition. They survive off of the sweat and toil of others and whose conscience is not seared at all by that thought. What is even more disturbing (to me) is this trend continues to grow while those willing to “enable” them grows…and I think I know the reason—it is easier to enable than encourage. To provide a handout rather than a hand up. I believe in being a giver. I have stated before and will do so again, I have been the recipient of people’s kindness and I have had the opportunity to give to those in need. I believe God has rewarded our hard work and efforts when we were unfortunately unable to meet our needs through other’s generosities and by the same token He has used to us to do the same for others. That to me is what it means to be an encourager. As the Word is saying, we must always be careful in these regards to be “encouragers” instead of “enablers.”
Pastor J. T. Carnell