Are you a Ragpicker?

I just finished reading Og Mandino's "The Greatest Miracle in the World."

I liked his other books better, but this one got me thinking about something. In the book you meet a 'ragpicker' who finds people who have given up on life and helps them find the beauty in life again. 
I started thinking about how it takes compassion to be a ragpicker. It takes empathy to see the hurts of another and to reach out regardless of the potential of being hurt yourself. 

And then something interesting happened.

I began to rationalize why I couldn't be a ragpicker in prison. Compassion is a sign of weakness. And the dregs of society, or dirty rags if you will, in prison don't deserve my compassion. Oh, there are exceptions of course, but by and large, the people I've met in prison are not only imprisoned physically. They are imprisoned in their minds. They are committed to their foolishness with little or no desire to put in the work to change. Simply put, they didn't deserve my compassion.

And then I remembered something.
"While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

Christ in me doesn't need to wait for someone deserving to show compassion to, because I was shown compassion without ever deserving it. 

Do you know someone undeserving of compassion? Go out and love them anyway.