I saw you walking today. With your burdened bag clung tightly to your back. Black coat on this hot sunny day…carrying what little you possess.
I drove in my new car, owning a home, education and a fountain of blessings….
Yet, I wondered who was really poor; was it you or was it me?
I saw you as you climbed the stairs, stood waiting for the bus, walked calmly and content across the street, while all the fancy cars passed…
And I envied your patience, longed for your gentleness, realized we were missing out on something…us who are the “have’s”.
Those unseen, the “have-nots”.
I live in a country that says power is the epidome, education the vehicle, knowledge superior, possessions the evidence of a life rich, one that’s truly blessed…
But the man I say I follow, the one who came, healed the blind, born humble, claimed, He had nowhere to lay His head.
And I wonder who is rich. Who is really poor.
You drag the essense of a home, under the stars, set up camp and make a life without the curse of to-do lists that never seem to end. While anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness, lead our nation.
You have a heart that beats strong. Your not afraid to walk or run to the destination you feel calling…even if it just leads you to the other side of town.
You don’t live weighted down with the fear of man. You have been mocked and spit on, let out in the rain, and forgotten by the masses.
In fact, most don’t even see you.
Yet, I say I serve another who was flogged and scared, and beaten, left without hope or friends…
And I am reminded how Christ’s nothingness lead to His resurrection.
Who is rich? Who is really poor?
We are experts at building castles to self, here in my land. Promoting our names, labels, brand, and selfies.
From the time children are born, we smile, shake hands, train them to cater to the masses…escort their every want…for position or power or influence…
We set up our kids, on platforms; in sports, education, social setting….in hopes that it will one day bring promotion, self-esteem, or justificatioin for why we are so empty inside.
“It’s who you know, not what you know”, we tell them. These kids that sweat for plastic trophies, work long hours, are imprisoned all day in schools with bullies…
Learning to cheat, guaranteeing they’ll bring home a goodrating…although it is actually somebody else’s…
We brag of “A’s”, gaining merit in others eyes, as if academics means hope or some guarantee for a promising life. Isn’t Jesus our kids’ only answer to their every heart hole?
The One I follow says HE is my hope and my future, the way, the truth, the life…the answer to the empty shell inside me, justification for all this world’s hurting.
Whose the one poor and who is rich?
You drag your bags behind you. Christ came to identify with the sojourner, the outcast, the lost, the forgotten, the alien in this land…
So, why
do I try to be different from the One that holds all of heaven in His hands?
I see you, the poor. You struggle to eat, cringe at the t.v. shows where fake people own fake furniture, in fake comedies, with fake lives, on fake media…
It’s all a mask. We know that, you and I.
But you are real. Really beaten. Really overtaken. Really poor. You, you don’t apologize for who you are.
Why do I?
Maybe you are rich. And maybe I am poor.
Maybe the glory and true achievement is authentic honestly about what possesses our very own hearts…
Tweet ThisMaybe the key is leaving pretense at the door, and coming humbly to the hem of all He has died to give us…
Maybe knowing we are needy is the first key to happiness. Climbing lower, the hope to the peak of His glory…
Isn’t it the weak, the needy…those that are often blessed beyond measure, while the proud are hungry, the wealthy just greedy for more?
I say I serve a man who didn’t boast in white wardrobes, exhalt himself with grandiose words or position, promote or labor to make His own name known…
He bowed down, low; to sin and death, to time and temptation and God’s perfect plan in it all.
And it was in that getting low, God exhaulted Him foremost.
Friend, could it be you are closer to Him…than me, or my neighbors, or all those driving past in big fancy cars thinking they have what He longs for most?
It’s the weak He makes strong. The humble He lifts up. The broken He pours life amidst.
Yes, maybe you are rich and the rest of us, poor.
Maybe all this world has taught us, educated our children with…is wrong? Maybe the strong aren’t to be lifted up and exonerated. Maybe the proud shouldn’t have t.v. time, highly rating perfection as if it’s something even close to attaining.
Maybe we’ve been blinded and deceived, delusioned into thinking a world, our carefully placed pieces…our house of cards, our glass, life houses are really the thing keeping us from a true Savior.
I saw, I worship the man who took that path THROUGH Samaria…instead of avoiding it because the people seemed “dirty” or unqualified.
Yet, He was rich.
Those finely dressed, sitting high and pompous, in their man-made synogues….poor.
Maybe He picks the tax-collector, the sick, the forgotten, the least qualified, touches them and calls them blessed?
And here I am thinking I have lessons I can teach you?
Come teach me, poor. Come educate my heart to need less, depend on finances and approval, likes and follows, less than I depend on Him…
I want Him to be my sole crown of glory, His praises will be all my heart sincerely longs and yearns for…
Him alone to be the pearl of great price, I sell all to go look for.
Yes, it’s not the proud and rich and land owners that have what it takes to see Jesus.
Its’ the weak and the humble, the forgotten and least likely…
Those who have two cloaks and
give one away because their eyes aren’t blinded, they see a need and meet it.
Yes, I can learn from you. Will you teach me?
You are rich. I am poor.
Yes, at the end of the day, I am in greatest want, yet you are the stranger walking the streets…with nothing keeping you from an open heaven…
Teach me. Won’t you sit down on a curb and talk with me awhile…
Educate me. Show me. What it means to be poor….so I can be rich?
