Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:3
Things. Thinkin’ ‘bout
things. If we are not careful, our lives
will begin to revolve around things. God
gives us things both to bless us and to test us. I like my things, but they have always been a
challenge for me. I always tried to take
good care of anything I had, even when I was a little kid with my toys and
books. I always sought to keep everything
in good shape. Today I get upset when
equipment gets torn up or something breaks.
I hate to see things destroyed or broken. I don’t like dings or scratches on my
vehicles. I don’t like to hear funny
noises. I don’t like computer crashes or
stuff like the wifi on my wife’s laptop ceasing to work for no good
reason.
For people like me, it is easy to get entrapped and enslaved
by acquisition and maintenance, to become the host for a host of mechanical
parasites. But a spirit of poverty
allows us to have, use, enjoy, and benefit from things without possessing or
being possessed by them. Things, from
machines to money, exist to serve us.
They are not who we are, and we do not derive our worth from them. A dead battery or a broken belt or even a
ruptured bank account may result in anything from a minor annoyance to a
radical lifestyle change. Maybe, though,
our lifestyle needs to change.
If I am living in such a way that a thing or things can
effectively destroy me or render me helpless and hopeless, I need to switch my
focus from the temporal world of things to the eternal realm of the Spirit, to
remember that this trek through time and matter is only a place where I learn
to look to and love the Lord.
I can be a good steward and manage well that which God gives
me to oversee, but if I ain’t got nothin’, I ain’t got nothin’ to lose.
