How do I tell Jesus to the boy sleeping in the cardboard box?

Lately I’ve been reading and re-reading some of the old classic novels. What are the three main things I find in all these novels? 1.poverty is rampant. 2. God is mentioned often. 3. Faith and perseverance are what cause the main character to win.
Poverty. It’s not a word often stated involving North Americans, though many experience it still. Back in the day, however, (and I mean back around the 30s and earlier) poverty was simply a life style. It was just how it was. You read about the little kids smoking and chewing tobacco because back then it was cheaper than food and quenched hunger; kids, worked in the streets and the sweat shops and the ones that didn’t work stole to survive, sometimes the ones who did work still had to steal. And it was a world wide problem. From the kid in Asia hitting the traveler with a rock and searching the body for food or something to trade for food, to the kid in the old factory in the US, hiding because his dad beats him and he can’t risk going home, poverty ran the streets and that was just how it was.
In these novels God is often mentioned as someone that the adults have learned to trust in despite their hardships, but the kids are still learning and they don’t understand. How can God take my family away? How can He let me go days without food so I dig in old gardens to find three year old dead roots to eat, just so I can have something? How do you explain God to them?
You meet them on their level. There was a time when all sidewalk a preacher did was read the Bible and people came to God without needing what they heard explained, that’s what God can do. But you can’t take a kid off the street, fill them full of rules and say ‘that’s God’s will so do it right or you don’t go to Heaven.’ It’s too much. You need to start on where they are at that moment. Tell them of Jesus’ love and how He is there with them, explain how Faith in the hard times will get them through. Most of all, show them love. Don’t look sideways at the dirty kid with barefeet who just entered your Church, take them and get them a water and let them sit with you so you can explain things to them when asked. We preach too many words, we need to live like we were listening to Jesus’ word more. The kid who had lived in moccasins her whole life can’t be expected to suddenly wear shoes, you can’t demand that she dress like you just to hear the word of God! What part of the Bible says ‘thou shalt wear suits to chapel’?
The kid who has run the streets his whole life with no one caring what he did can’t be expected to sit quiet and not fidget, he can’t suddenly be told to pray and receive but not be told what that means, he might pray for a toy truck and never get it and think God doesn’t care. Explain. But keep it to the Bible, not your opinion.
These kids in the stories learn to fight hard, with the right help they learn to trust God, then they win the battle. But if we try to break them to be in our image, they may never learn how to live in God’s image.
Oh, and all the books I’ve been reading are based on true events, so, how many of those true event kids found Jesus and how many were sidelined by people who wanted them to be respectable, but didn’t care if that stopped them from becoming Christians?
How many people have missed out on Jesus because the Christians got in the way?
And how many people met the right Christian? The Christian who wanted to help, the one who was Jesus’ hands and feet and therefore that person was able to guide the lost to Jesus?
I’m saying get out of the way, I’m saying that we need to pray about our approach before speaking. I didn’t think I could ever find a way to speak to a kid who had been mislead by false teachings and show them Jesus, until I prayed about it and God gave me the words to say, and in the end the biggest thing I could do was love and trust God to give me the words. I didn’t say ‘go change and then try again because God won’t see you when you are like this.’ I said what everyone at my booth said, ‘we are all sinners and make mistakes, but Jesus loves us and is our friend.’
Because that’s the Jesus people will respond to, and that’s what Christ Himself preached and that’s how He lived.

You know how when you’re watching a mystery, and you kind of get a feeling for who the bad guy is right away? That’s because the author has put small hints throughout the show as to who the criminal might be to guide us to the right guess.  In life, God who is the author of all things, puts feelings in us in relation to situations and people who might be dangerous. God is always working to keep us safe. He knows when you shouldn’t walk your dog after midnight down a dark street, He knows when that turn of phrase of facial expression with that person you were just with is more than just your imagination. God will always work to protect you, and if you have a feeling that something isn’t safe, pray about it. Maybe you have watched too much crime TV and now it’s in your head, but maybe it’s the Holy Spirit warning you about something. I remember walking my dog and feeling that I shouldn’t go our normal route, I also recall thinking that that was stupid and doing my route anyway. What I didn’t know was that the owners of one of the houses in that route had let their kid take care of their dog instead of the parents, so this large, aggressive dog was off leash on the road. She saw my dog and came at him, I was on my knees wrapping myself around my dog to protect him. He was so traumatized that he had never been the same. I should have listened to that voice because it was the Holy Spirit warning me. Sometimes however, even when we don’t listen to The Voice, God protects us anyways. That dog had attacked another dog recently before mine, so the owners had been forced to pull out all of her teeth, (which I feel is a little mean,) that meant that instead of her actually killing my dog (which you would have done if she had had a mouthful of teeth) all she managed to do was traumatize him mentally and bruise his body and pull a few of his ligaments. You could say it’s a coincidence, but I say that God knew I probably wouldn’t listen to that Voice so He made sure the attacking dog had no teeth to attack with. Don’t ignore the Holy Spirit, it will always end badly if you do.

You never know what another person is going through, and you never know why they react poisonously towards you. I would never justify somebody mistreating somebody else for a personal reason, but when you think that maybe they’ve had a rough day, or a rough week, it helps you to not feel so hurt by their actions. It’s not right to take out your own personal problems on somebody else, but lots of people do it and like the person standing too close to Godzilla’s tail you may be the one who gets crushed under their wrath. Again I’m not saying that that’s good or okay, but if you consider things from their point of view and, instead of reacting Let It Go-I say that one more time because it hurts-Let It Go, then not only will you not cause more problems for yourself but you may also cause that other person to feel a little bit guilty, and that guilt may cause them to re-evaluate their actions and they may even later apologize…..and they may not; just remember that the other person’s problem is not your fault and if you can, try to walk away without carrying the sting from how they’ve treated you with you because it’s not your burden to carry. If you can, try praying for them, not only is it biblically correct but you’d be amazed at the times when simply asking God to help the other person will cause that other person to react better to you. Again not always, but even if they don’t react better to you, you have still done the right thing.