You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Poverty’ tag.
Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud. Proverbs 16:19
It always amazes me when I hear about a celebrity of some sort that makes the news because of some tragedy. Drug abuse, poor financial decisions, physical abuse and robbery are just a few that come to mind.
What happens in the human mind that does that to a person. They have it all! Fame, power, money and a huge social media following, yet they throw it all away for what seem like momentary and insignificant enjoyment.
On the other hand you will hear of people of lesser means who spend their entire lives helping others, encouraging the weak, providing for others no better off than themselves.
Power and fame often lead to pride and pride destroys a person. The prideful person doesn’t always have a clear view of life. They see things from a perspective of invincibility.
The humble person sees life from a perspective of need. Pride drives us to always want more. Humility instills in us a feeling of contentment. Prideful people live a life of entitlement, humble people live a life of gratitude. Pride can put us in a mindset of always wanting more, humility reminds us we have all we need. Prideful people are often critical, humble people tend to o be more understanding.
Proverbs 16:19 has it right. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard successful people say their best years were the years of humility and poverty. Stop striving for what you don’t have, start giving from what you do have and you’ll find life is better.
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. Romans 8:18
I remember family reunions at Thanksgiving. Gathered around the table with bowls of delicious food. We kids would eat well, but always left room for grandma’s pie. The food was great. Dessert was better.
Looking back, I didn’t realize how truly blessed we were as a family. At that time no one we knew was touched by divorce, cancer or had been lost in the war. How easy it is when times are good to lose sight of the way things are for others.
Those who are born into wealth never have an inkling of what the rest of the world has to deal with. Their security has never in jeopardy. Yet those of us born in relative poverty struggle and strive for something better. For some of us we toil and spend, running up a debt we can never repay to have toys we will never fully enjoy. Others work a lifetime to build up a retirement account that gets washed away in illness or political and financial collapse.
What’s true in the financial world is true in the spiritual world. Some of us live with our debt hanging over our head. Even in the good times we are constantly aware of possible impending doom. In our physical lives we live paycheck to paycheck; in our spiritual lives we live sin to sin, always focusing on our failure, rarely living in the victory Jesus already fought to give us. Others of us run headlong into life, living on grace but never realizing the ultimate cost. We enjoy this life but fail to realize the full benefit of living wisely.
Those who live with eternity in mind are well aware of God’s benefits. Though the struggle now is great, they endure and enjoy the struggle and wait in eager anticipation for what comes ahead. Time and again I am amazed at the joy some have in the midst of sickness and poverty. They live a secret we often forget: ‘It gets better’. While we walk this earth we may never experience the comforts of the wealthy, but we are children of a king and someday we’ll receive our inheritance and the memories of the struggles here on earth will be washed away in the glow of Jesus’ face.
PRAYER: Father God, there are so many times we get distracted by the ‘wants’ of this world and fail to remember that this world is not our home. Help us to live as citizens of heaven and not as slaves of this earth. In Jesus name, Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 