Do for One What You Wish You Could Do for All

The Landlord

“I decided to do for one what I wished I could do for all,” he says.

His plans to evict changed the day he drove by the house. It was one of the houses he owned as a rental property. The house was rented by a family. The tenant’s rent was in arrears with no prospect of his being able to make amends in sight. The landlord drove by to tell the tenant they needed to move. The tenant had rented for years and always paid on time – until he didn’t. In the last months, there was always a reason for lack of payment. By now, he was months behind.  Now, the landlord resorted to phone conversations because the tenant quit coming to see him. He knew also that the tenant now had their granddaughter living with them.

One day, he decided enough was enough. He got into his car and drove by the house. He’d stop and give the tenant warning he was going to begin the process of eviction. Outside the rental house, he noticed the little girl. She was riding her bicycle, oblivious to the family’s plight.

The little girl

He watched the child, riding up and down the alley. She was maybe six years old, seemingly unafraid as she pedaled her bike along the road.  

“I sat there and thought about everything I have and how little they have,” he told Dave. “If I evicted them, I knew that little girl would have to move and I didn’t know where they’d go. I could have been born in the same situation as that little girl, but I wasn’t.”

He drove away.  “I couldn’t do that to that little girl,” he says today. “I can’t evict them.”

What about the money he is owed and the knowledge that he doesn’t know when – if ever – he’ll get rent money?  What about that?!

“When I look at what I have and the environment in which I grew up, I realize that, except for my privileges, I could be where they are. I have so much more than they do, and it’s not because of what I’ve done. It’s because of where I grew up and what my parents had, and what their parents had long before I came on the scene. Not everyone is blessed like I was. I can live without that money if it means that little girl has a place to live.”

Do for one

He’s a good man, and he serves a big God. That God still nudges us about how to live. Our friend listened to that nudge from God, and did for one what he wished he could do for all.

“I can’t help everybody, but I can help this family. I decided to do for them what I wish I could do for all.”

Today, I keep thinking: what if every one of us released one debtor when we have so much? What if we took a chance to help someone who didn’t ask to be born where they were? What if we lived without that money so someone else could?  What if we gave someone a second chance? Look at the change we’d make in our own neighborhood.

Jesus said if we want to share the Gospel, we start in our own Jerusalem. Then we spread the net beyond our home community to neighboring counties, states, and the world. We first begin at home.

We begin by doing for one what we wish we could do for all.

Photo credit: hainguyenrp@pixabay.com