The story is told of a young boy living in a poverty-stricken section of a big city who found his way into a gospel meeting and was converted. Not long afterward, someone tried to shake his faith by asking him several puzzling questions: “If God really loves you, why doesn’t someone take better care of you? Why doesn’t He tell somebody to send you a new pair of shoes?” The boy thought for a moment and then said, as the tears filled his eyes, “I guess He does tell somebody, but somebody forgets!”

While it’s true that the believer’s primary obligation is to lead people to Christ, we sometimes use that as an excuse to escape our responsibility to also “do good and to share” (Heb. 13:16). We need to keep our spiritual balance and not forget to “do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10). If unbelievers who don’t even know the Lord are conscious of the needs of other people, how much more should we, who have experienced the love of God personally, seek to relieve the suffering and lift the burdens of those who are less fortunate.

If God gives you a burden for someone in need, may it never be said of you that “somebody forgot!”

  — Richard De Haan