Being Someone Else

 I remember being shocked when I heard Bishop H. David  Burton make this statement as a part of his address, at the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting,  February 2009

1. Seek out the poor.
Bishops should keep in mind that it is their responsibility
to seek out the poor. It is not enough to assist
only when asked. The bishop should encourage
priesthood and Relief Society leaders, along with
home teachers and visiting teachers, to help identify
those who need assistance.

This was the first I'd heard that the poor should be sought out!  I've thought about this off and on for almost 3 years.  That entire talk focused on helping people.  Not waiting until they are in such desperate need that they have to ask for help.  Identifying those who need assistance and helping them. 

In our lives, at times, we see amongst our members the aftermath when justice has been satisfied.  Some lose their possessions. Others lack money to live what we would call a normal life,  some are stymied, stopped right in their tracks with no apparent way to dig themselves out.   Some make decisions that cause the repercussions of justice to be almost all encompassing.  They suffer and their children suffer.   The poor seem to have a stigma.  Now these poor are not the ones we read about in the ghetto's, the slums, the impoverished nations of the world.  These are people that we go to Church with.  People down on their luck, as the saying goes.

The Savior mentions in Mark 14:7...For ye have the poor with you always.....  When we put this mix of, have/have-not people into a Ward setting, then we have the real testing ground of our faith.  Perhaps this is where we put our faith without works attribute to the test?  If justice has been satisfied, then isn't it up to me to extend mercy?  Justice is the no nonsense carrying out of consequence of actions created by choices.  Do I  choose to keep piling on what I consider more justice?  Do I appoint myself as a judge?  Viewing the natural consequence that has rendered them in a mess do I then judge them.  Do I say...  The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just— (Mosiah 4:17)

Have I been guilty of rubbing the faces of the poor into their misery.  Making sure they suffered enough? .......

What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.  

(Isa.3:15 [repeated In 2 Nephi13:15])

Shouldn't they have known better?  Why should I help bail them out in even the least way?  Who bails me out?  It's their own fault.  No fool would do what they did.  and on and on.  It's terrible how they live.  Have you seen their place?  They need to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get to work.  There is no excuse for being lazy.  He was stupid.  He's a fool. Anyone with half a grain of sense knows that you don't do what he did!  and on and on and on.

I have a first-aid salve called Calendula.  It is thick, heavy, not real pleasant smelling Marigold ointment but it works wonders on any wound.  For cuts it is amazing!  It speeds healing, immediately removes the majority of pain, and even reduces scarring. I have shared it with appreciative friends.  Somewhere in my purse, don't I have a small tin of Balm of Gilead, to enable me to give a bit of mercy?  a bit of comfort, encouragement, kindness?  something nice?  something to help the healing and not give a salt rub to an open wound.

When people are suffering from decisions or life circumstances that cause them consequently suffering and pain, do I just feel sorry for them and their lot in life?  Does justice require that I leave things as they are and show no mercy?

 President Packer recently said- "The law of justice can be fully satisfied and mercy can be fully extended, but it takes someone else." 

I want to be and I need to be that merciful "someone else".  

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 D&C 52:40

 40 And remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple.

1 John 3:17,18

 17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

 18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/61645/President-Packer-I-speak-most-earnestly-to-the-one-who-is-seeking.html