Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

I have worked and lived in Orange County, CA for the past 6 years, one of the most affluent, materialistic, comfort-seeking areas in America. I grew up in Littleton, CO, a beautiful, quiet suburban town outside of Denver. I have been upper-middle class my entire life, along with most of my friends, and lived under the idea that life should be that way. Of course, as Christians we shouldn’t prize our possessions too highly, or put too much worth on outer-beauty; and I would even say that I and the people I know have done a decent job of that. We try our best to put God first and never make idols out of material things or wealth. Yet I’m willing to venture that deep-down, we aren’t quite convinced that we really need God. We say we do and we think we do, and in many emotionally empty ways we know we do…yet I hesitate to say that we truly believe it. I mean in the way that we live, where every action and decision speaks to our dependence on God and his plans for us.

People like me grow up in nice large homes, full of more food than we can even eat before it expires; we dine out several times a week, we go out and buy new clothes whenever we feel like it. We attend church and youth group functions, maybe give a few weeks over the summer to missions trip. Go to good schools, study, work hard to get good grades and achieve our best. Of course this is so we can get into a good college, and then pray that our choice is in God’s will. We get jobs to pay for our nights out with our friends, movies, cell-phones, or the newest fashion trend. We network and go to special events to meet the right people in order to find the right jobs, and take internships to slowly climb the ladder and build our resume. Then we graduate and get jobs which pay for our bills, our homes, our food, our cars, and build up our savings for our futures, or to afford bigger and better things. We budget, we set aside money for vacations and 401k’s, nice retirements and work towards the perfect home, the perfect husband or wife, the perfect family. We get involved at church with children’s ministry or in small groups. That’s pretty much life. We strive, we work hard, we plan and prepare and make good lives for ourselves. I mean, of course we pray daily, we tithe, we study God’s work, we ask for His will and blessing, we strive to please him in all that we do, we hope to serve him with our lives, and we whole-heartedly love Him.

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that path…I have plenty of reason to believe from reading God’s word that he desires to bless his people, that he wants to give to us and offer us joyful, peaceful lives. However…might I also be so bold to say that, just maybe, that was not all God had intended for us. That a happy home, nice job and serving God’s people may not be God’s ideal for our lives
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…” – Matthew 5

These are not the most pleasant of ideas when you really look at them. Mourning….meek…poor in spirit….hunger….persecuted. None of these seem to factor into my life, not really anyway. Now, these may have been directed at a certain audience in Jesus’ time who lived much different lives than we do. Perhaps they are not saying that we should be like this necessarily, but that if you are you will still be blessed. It may not be theologically correct to say that God is saying these exact things to us today, or telling us to be this way. However, I would say that there is something to living with this kind of mindset that still applies to us. Not just that it offers hope when you are down, but that there is something in this kind of hard life that brings us closer to Jesus, makes him sweeter than before, and teaches us true faith and dependence on him.

I used to read these “beatitudes” and think they were a nice idea, but didn’t fully understand them. A person who mourns, who is poor in spirit, who is meek – is a person like this truly blessed, fully at peace, enjoying a full life, or even find it easy to praise God all the time? I’d be willing to say no. But you know what? They need God…I mean, they really need him. He’s not just a nice idea to them, no, they actually know what it means to hunger and thirst for him…often because they are so low they don’t even have any real food to eat.

God has given me several opportunities over the last few months to spend time with these types of people in many different capacities. And I have to say, that in my 24 years of living, I have probably learned more about God from these people than anyone else.

One of my best friends is this type of person, due to circumstances that God has put him into. His life just plain sucks sometimes; but he’s dependent on God for everything. His heart is so willing and open to what God wants, no matter how hard, no matter how “poor in spirit” it makes him. But his faith is inspiring, it teaches me something new almost every day, and it shows me that I am far to prideful, too in control of my own life, and that I should be willing to put my own comfort on the line to sacrifice for Jesus every single day.

I talked with many homeless men in New Orleans last month whose lives are hard and scary most of the time. They are not always happy, they worry, they fear, but they are also utterly dependent on God. The repeat phrases of scripture to get them through the day. And if they don’t already know God, they know that they have need of something bigger, need of hope, and their hearts are open.

Just last week I was in Hollywood until about 2am spending my time with homosexuals, druggies, and transvestites. They know their lives are hard, empty, and full of hurt. The get caught up in vicious cycles of prostitution to pay bills, then drugs, then prostitution to support their drug addiction. When we talked, they shared their lives and their hurts and they know how depraved they are.

Of course Jesus hung out with these types of people! It makes so much sense. If I was Jesus, I would have hung out with them too, not Pharisees like me. There are plenty of days when I know I need God, but I don’t honestly feel it. I’ve spent years thinking I could handle it and that I was in control, and God was just kind of my backup and my buddy. Why would Jesus want to spend his time with people like me? People who barely realize that without him they are nothing? As I become more aware of my need, my sin and weaknesses…as I experience hurt and pain, and see others in the middle of it, I get it. Those are the times that I cry out to God, that I talk to him the most, that I need him the most, when I truly feel his presence and blessing, and when I learn what it is to praise him. That is when he teaches me compassion, love, and grace for others; because then I know just a little of what it feels like to hurt and need compassion and need love.

My Orange County / Littleton life does not lend itself, at least in my case, to a meekness or humility or mourning, the life that Jesus addressed in Matthew. That is a life about me and my comfort, not about him and suffering for his name and living in desperate need of him in view of his mercy. I want to know God the way that the poor and needy and orphaned do. I pray that my life would not be about me and filling my hopes and dreams and desires. And that’s hard, because even other Christians lead me to believe that’s what my life should be about. But instead, I hope that it would be used to show God’s love to those who don’t yet know him. That I hand out with those that Jesus did, and cling to him in the same way. These words from one of my new favorite songs sum it up perfectly:

“You sit at the table
With the wounded and the poor;
You laugh and share stories with the thief and the whore.
And when you could just be silent
And leave us here to die,
Still you sent your son for us;
You are on our side.”
-Bethany Dillon