Living Unhurried #54

"Blessed are the poor in spirit..."

Poor/poverty - not a word most of us like whether it is poor in spirit, pocketbook, health, aptitude, or love. When you hear this word, what does it connote? Not even the thesaurus is helpful - pauper, beggar, indigent, penniless, insufficient, inadequate, deficient. Yuck!

Blessed are the poor in spirit...for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...

I admit this verse does not inspire me. It does not make me feel blessed. I think, inherently, that poverty - whether it be vocational, relational, physical with our health, aptitude, spiritual or soulish poverty, I feel vulnerable and that's why I don't like it. Vulnerable, exposed, unprotected. So, like Adam and Eve, I sew fig leaves for myself...

There are two roads when facing an impoverished area of life:

1. Protect, defend and fend for ourselves
2. Let our poverty expose our deepest desires and need for Him...and in that vulnerability, trust.

So I suppose we can be defensive, or we can be intimate. Which way are you living today? Will you be courageous enough, unhurried enough, today to sit before the Lord and talk to Him about the areas of your life where you feel impoverished/vulnerable? Pay attention to how you would rather "defend" or "deny" or "overcome" this vulnerability more than take it to the Lord. What makes you afraid to talk to Him about it?

Close your time by reading Matthew 5:3-5 from the Message:

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. 

With less of you there is more of God and His rule.

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what's dear to you.

Only then can you be embraced by the one most dear to you

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less

that's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that cannot be bought."

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