to be the poor

I have never sincerely thought of myself as the poor. And I don’t mean college student poor. I mean pooooor. I always thought it was “them” apart from me. Not in an, “I’m better than you” way, but more as an honest socio economic distinction. Kinda the same way as I viewed the rich. It was “them” apart from me.
But recently I have been feeling my own poverty. Not spiritually or emotionally but straight up penny for penny, financially and materially, practically rocking my personal economic world. It’s been humbling and painfully raw, in a way I never imagined… I taste the bitter tang of desperation, the nagging relentless wishing for something to give and the endless temptation to take things into my own hands. Yes I am broke. Yes I am the poor.

Yet I know it is not the bottom. I know I have stuff I could sell, skills I could use or people who would lovingly take me in. But today I realize I am the poor. With not a dollar at my disposal, God has brought me to a place where I have no other choice than to wait for Him to act. I stand in this desert, parched, with not a cloud in sight.
I am here, I believe, because my heart must know this place. I am here because I must become one of those I desire to serve. In reality I can never fully be like them but together with them I can say that I know what it means to cry out to the Lord for daily provision. I know what it means to be disappointed at how I thought God would and should provide. Today I have reflected that it is easy to declare trust and faith in God’s provision when one has a pay check every two weeks. It is quite another fearful thing when that declaration is tested. I used to sing “Jehovah Jirah My Provider” giving little pause to the words. Now they stick to my tongue as I whisper my worship. I am learning He is greater, He is Able and His concern is where my heart resides. Because where our treasure is, is where our hearts will be also.

I am saddened at the pride my head and heart harbor around money. I am disappointed that something in me craves to use money as a measure of success and economic resources at my disposal as the litmus for ones value. Mmmhhh..
As the bullets whiz by in these trenches I fearfully repeat my instructions to myself,… "Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”
The battle rages on. I am the poor.

Overwhelmed & exhausted...but I'm back

“I discovered later, and am still discovering right up to this moment that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously not only our own sufferings but those of God in the world, that I think is faith.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (21 July 1944)