Later

Galatians 6:10
"So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

James 1:27
"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

1 Thessalonians 5:15
"See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone."

Hebrews 13:16
"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

Isaiah 1:17
"learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." 

As Christians, we have lots of opportunities to do good. I would say that probably every single day I have the opportunity to be kind to my fellow man, or to help or encourage another person in some way. The problem is that for some reason I don't always take those opportunities. I want to take them, and I want to help other people, but because of one simple rationalization, I do not.

Often when I am confronted with a situation where I can help someone, especially financially, I think to myself, "What if someone else needs this money later, and I've wasted it on this person who needs it less than that person? I better save it up for the next situation." This sort of reasoning happens in other things too. "I should really take the time to encourage this person now, but I can't really give it my best effort right now. I better wait until later when I can devote more time to their problem so I can help them better." For every sort of opportunity we have to do good, there is this kind of "later" excuse.

While I would like to think that I am alone in making these kind of excuses, and that once I change my attitude the problem will be solved, I think this rationalization is probably incipient amongst well-meaning, thoughtful Christian people. It seems reasonable, and it comes from a place of wanting to do the most possible good, but it has to stop.

It has to stop because we are not guaranteed "later". Think of the rich fool from Luke 12:

¹⁶ And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, ¹⁷ and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ ²⁰ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ²¹ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

This parable doesn't teach us specifically about doing good to others, but I think it gives us valuable insight about how we should approach opportunities to help people. The rich man in this story made these grand plans for later, plans he would never be able to carry out because he died that night. I don't think his plans were necessarily bad (like our plans to help people at some imaginary later date), but they were pointless because he couldn't carry them out. The truth is that we "know neither the day nor the hour" (Matt 25:13) when the Lord will return or when our souls will be required of us. If we pass by an opportunity to do good, that might be it. We may get no other opportunities. And maybe that's really morbid, but I think that we should do good in every situation like it is the only time we have to do good. If we treated every opportunity to help others like the culminating event of our lives, I think we would be more like Christ.

Let's stop making excuses about time or resources and start taking every opportunity to do good to others as if "later" was not an option.