Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

I can not claim poverty. I have seen poverty in Haiti and I live in luxury. In my early years as a single dad I collected food stamps and financial subsidies, but I still have a hard time looking back and describing my financial state as poverty stricken.

None the less, I have always been a penny pincher. As a kid, I'd save all my birthday money and Christmas money and allowance to buy a single Lego set. When my friends were spending their money on garbage pale kids and gummy rats, I kept my hands in my pockets so the money wouldn't somehow fly away. My family teased me when I came back from a trip to Circus Circus in Vegas with my Grandmother and still had half the money she had given me to play video games; my cousin had blown through the money in less than 30 minutes while I examined each and every game to see if the few minutes of pleasure would out way the loss of funds.

So that same penny pincher lives inside of me now, though his grip has lessened a bit. I still have a personal stash of green - a piggy bank if you will - that I use to buy my adult version of Legos, things that are not essential to the running of our household, but that bring joy to my soul - music, travel, entertainment... So when my family went through a financial hard spot this summer it felt like complete poverty when we broke into my little piggy bank to cover the bills. Intellectually I know it's silly that while sitting in my home (a palace by Haitian standards) with a well stuffed pantry and comfortably cooled by A/C that I could even entertain the though of poverty, but I did.

Thank God I didn't wallow for too long, but I did none the less and I am embarrassed for it. But, in another way, we are all poor; we are all poor in spirit. On our own we have no spiritual wealth, our accounts are empty and any check we write will come up insufficient. Without God, their is no currency of spirit, anything else but God's wealth is counterfeit! To ignore our poverty is a travesty. If we are ignorant of our poverty we can not be BLESSED - our knowing of our poverty blesses us because then we can be directed to the kingdom and the King from which all blessings flow.

Through my poverty I inherit the entire kingdom of heaven. This is such an awesome truth that I don't think I will ever get my head fully around it. The economy of scale that God works in is so above my pay grade, but none the less, I benefit from His grace. Thank you God.

A PRAYER TO START THE DAY

Abba Father,

  Let my heart be Your heart;
  Let my thought be Your thoughts;
  Let my ears be sensitive to Your voice;
  Let my eyes be open to Your wonders;
  Let my mouth speak words of Life;
  Let my feet follow Your lead,
  And my hands busy in Your Kingdom's work.
  My body is Yours;
  I relinquish control to Your perfect will.
  Let me be filled with Your love.

Why are we here?

Surely one reason is to be reconciled to God. By Adam's choice we have been separated from God and from that point on condemned to death. But, God has been working through all time to circumvent that choice. What was that choice? It was actually an acquisition; an acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6). It is this knowledge that shapes our world. We innately know good from bad. right from wrong. And, once something is know it can't be removed; it can't be un-known. So why does this lead to death? For  starters, we now have to make choices. without the knowledge we were completely in tune with God's will. By His direction all things flowed and since He is all good we walked in all goodness. Now that we have knowledge we no longer rely 100% on God's grace and mercy, but instead have knowledge to base our actions. This knowledge is contrary to His direction.

So why death? If we see death as the separation of man from God then we see that by knowledge we separated ourselves from God. Now, by His nature, God is all or nothing. Actually, He is ALL, but our minds tainted by the knowledge obtained at the fall, the knowledge of dichotomy, can not even fully comprehend this fact. Since God is ALL, if we separate ourselves from God by just a fraction we are completely separated from God. There is no partial with God because He is ALL. So this is why death is the consequence of our choice - the choice by it very substance separates us from God and hence we are sentenced to death, i.e., separation.

Fortunately, God does not give up so easily. He chose to send Himself into our midst and condemn Himself to our fate. Now here is where things get really weird. How can God separate Himself - the one - from Himself? We will never know in this reality, it's like we don't have enough dimensions, but by the accounts of the disciples and the prophets that is exactly what God did. God separated Himself from Himself and allowed Himself to DIE.

So why are we here? As stated above, it's to wrestle with God and come close to His truth and be saved from the condemnation of death by allowing His sacrifice to be our covering. Then it is to walk in and become comfortable in our new covering. This walking out of God's grace is not necessary for our salvation from death but it is surely beneficial to our life to come and it would be an insult to or a cheapening of the gift if we didn't.