A friend of the poor is a friend of God.
Proverbs 19:17 tells us that “he who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD.” And in Proverbs 14:31: “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” The prophet Jeremiah wrote of good King Josiah, “’He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 22:16).
All of us marvel at history’s friends of the poor. We look at the life of Francis of Assisi, who left the fortunes of his father’s textile industry to live with the poor. There was something right about his life, something we want to emulate.
Author Gordon Aeschliman got to know Bishop Festo Kivengere before his death. When he first met him Festo was a black Anglican priest under the cruel and pathetic dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin. Amin’s demonic campaign of terror in the 1970s left hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows in its wake. Amin threatened to kill the priest and many Christians overseas offered to let him into their countries. But Kivengere stayed in Uganda to minister God’s mercy to the poor, the widows and the orphans.
After Amin was kicked out, Gordon asked Bishop Kivengere how he managed to live in the middle of such pain and destruction. “Doesn’t such poverty overwhelm you?” Kivengere’s sweet spirit, forged through his relationship with Christ, shot right back: “No, Gordon, Christ’s compassion does not overwhelm us. It sharpens our vision, sensitizes our hearts, and compels us into action.”