I will not name her, but she is a woman I know well. For most of her life, she has been picking up strays.

Not cats. She’s allergic to them.

People. The kid in school who had no other friends. The awkward person with no social skills. The lonely senior with no family nearby. The immigrant with limited English. The person whose responsibilities exceed his emotional capacity.

She has other friends, of course. And colleagues who respect her. And faithful family members. But God also keeps putting strays in her path. And she keeps embracing them.

I have done it occasionally, but not nearly as consistently or as well as she has done.

Jesus taught, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14 NIV). And then Jesus told a parable about His Father preparing a banquet and filling it with “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” when those originally invited refused to come (Luke 14:15-24). In other words, He said that God practiced what Jesus was preaching.

Christians all know this teaching of Jesus. But too few of us put it into practice.