This morning I read again the passage in Matthew 19 about the rich young ruler and I can’t stop thinking about how rich I am and how painfully applicable the passage is to me. Real, down and dirty, physical poverty is so close that I can literally hit it with a rock from my back deck. Our family gets lots of pats on the back for the “big’ sacrifices we have made to come “here”, but I‘ve got to be honest, we have no idea what it really means to be “here”. The “here” we live in includes almost all of the physical comforts we call necessities in the U.S. The “here” we live in is carefully separated from the real here.
From “here” we take fieldtrips to the poverty. It hurts to see it, but usually a nice warm meal or a change of clothes can get us back to our comfort zone. Sometimes all it takes is a baby wipe.
Like the rich young ruler I want to “do” something for Christ. I bet if Jesus would have asked him to work with the poor he gladly would have said yes. It may have been the very thing he was eager to do. Take it from me there is great personal reward and glory in working with the poor. But Jesus didn’t want another worker, another “doer’. What He wanted was another poor person. And not just a poor person, but a person who was poor by choice. He was looking for a person who was able to yield his physical condition to the condition of his soul. Blessed are the poor in Spirit.
Unlike Paul (Phil 4:12), I have not yet learned how to be content with plenty and I don’t have a clue what it is to want.
Please change my heart Lord. I’m tired of sadly walking away from you invitation to be poor and blessed. I’m tired of being a camel looking at you through the eye of a needle.
