I am rich in situation, in health, in friends, in finances, in safety, in time...in every way I can imagine. I am even rich in spirit, with free access to the family of God and the word of God. In every practical sense, I have autonomy to make my own decisions, to go and do what I want.
And that's the trick of it. If I am to become like Christ, I must become poor.
For your sake He became poor so that through His poverty, you might become rich.--2Cor 8:9
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.--Matthew 5:3
I don't even know where to begin sometimes. He has given so much. Everything I have came because God brought it into an undeserving life. I can't, I won't, refuse to take or keep it and thereby denigrate the Giver. What I have was first God's, and He transferred it to me as a trust for me to use in His name. And, in the process, He has filled me up past where I think I know how to administrate it all.
How do I use it and not hoard it? How to I scatter bread upon the waters and be sure I am not casting it to the pigs? How do I remain comfortable in Him without becoming comfortable in the company of so many earthly good things?
Somehow, in the face of all these riches, I have to feel the pinch of poverty. Surrounded by all He's given, I have to know how poor I really am without Him.
Wealth and comfort are gifts from God. They are. They surround me with ease, but can become a shroud if I forget where they came from and what I am supposed to do with them. I have to give them away, and rightly, to the proper people in the proper situations where they are used to glorify Him. And all the while maintaining focus not on the things or opportunities, but on Him.
Sometimes I screw this up. I see the shiny thing (or place or person) and, oh, I reach out for it, and because I am rich in so many ways, most of the time I can have it. Right then. When I want it most.
But I know I've done wrong when, as soon as I take hold of the thing, it turns to ash. The pleasure is gone. The charm of anticipation turns into the disappointment of possession. I have a fur coat like that.
I remember wanting it so badly. It was soft and beautiful and warm. And Dave, because he loved me, bought it. And I pulled it out of the box, and there it was, as beautiful as it had always been, but by the time I put it down again, the luster of it had gone. I still have the coat, but never wear it. I do lend it out sometimes, but keep it around mainly to remind me of the misuse of love, of gifts, and of money.
So, this is the solution as far as I know it:
For me to become poor, I have to know that I am not as rich as I seem.
For me to become poor, what I give has to cost me to the point that I feel the lack of what I've given.
For me to become poor, I have to always be at the point of depending on God, not on the comfort of my riches.
For me to become poor, I have to do things that may not look like they make sense, but force me to maintain my connection to God.
For me to become poor, I have to remember that my need for a Savior never wanes.
I am not Mother Teresa. God has not called me to that kind of practical poverty. But He calls me to poverty nevertheless, the kind that bears all the outward trappings of wealth, but must, at the risk of my soul, be borne with constant understanding that I am as much a desolate waif before Him as any street urchin or condemned criminal.
Mother Teresa serves from a place of intentional poverty, and I serve from a place of apparent wealth, but our service must be identical before God. Today, when we remember the Last Supper and imagine watching the bended head of God as He washed his friends' feet, we recall that He became nothing before us, although He was God. I must become nothing before Him. It is my only rightful place.
Rich in many ways, yet we may choose poor in spirit, giving and accepting. May Easter help us rise above our choosing to be poor
ReplyDeleteAnd to rest in the glory of it all. Thank you.
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