Blessed are the poor

Painting by Kip Dekker

While I was waiting in the car while Tani did a bit of shopping today I saw a girl that looked just like me when I first had Emmy. She must have been around 19, had dark purple streaked hair and a little boy in a pushchair. Her nose was buried in her phone as she waited in line. She seemed alone. I began to pray for her, that God would touch her life as He has mine. That the peace and joy of knowing Him would flow into her life.

Then I thought about how much life has changed for me over the last 25 years.
I have been blessed in many ways. I have moved from material lack to abundance. I am a much more responsible person. I am more reasoned. My life ticks the boxes of respectability.
But in some ways, the abundance has become a trap. With the  extra comfort and security has come a disconnect from the vulnerability I used to have.

Being at home all the time at the moment, we’ve spent quite a bit of extra money in the house and garden. Spending money can be intoxicating. It can make you feel high. I have been addicted to drugs in my past so when I feel this  kind of ‘high’ I see red flags. The thing is, its not about the spending of money. I don’t mean falling into scrupulous guilt over every purchase.  I’m talking about being aware of what our actions do to our heart. Do they harden our hearts or soften them. Do they make us more proud and protective or more open and willing to give? I don’t want to get ‘drunk’ on the world. I want the wine I drink to be the wine of Jesus. His shed blood. The wine of the spirit. The communion I have with Him.

We have to make a choice. What do we want? What do I have to give up to buy that pearl of great  price?

I was thinking about the three vows nuns take on making their solemn profession. Chasity, obedience and poverty.
On taking the vow of poverty the nun renounces all personal property. From that point on all material things become a momentary blessing, objects of usefulness and beauty which can’t be possessed. A book, a piece of music, a warm coat. Everything given to be given and trusting always that the right thing will be provided at the right time even if that ‘thing’ is only God’s presence.

There is liberty in the idea that nothing is owned, that every moment is providence. There is a total abandonment in embracing that nothing really belongs to us.
Possessions  can become burdens, prisons and idols that weigh us down, keep us trapped and require us to sacrifice at their alters.

The more we experience things through the  layers of protection that come with material security the greater our distance from relating to the poor, the lost and the alone. And that is where God made Himself manifest. With the lost, the poor and the alone.

When we try to justify ourselves a hardness grows. We become brittle and self satisfied.

I need to hear these words, let them sink like rain into the hard clay of my heart till it become soft and malleable.

The remedy? Perhaps is to fall once again into abandonment to providence. To give freely. To trust radically. To be prepared to be mocked, to let those tender buds of new life form. To walk in the spirit. To unblock  the dams and ramparts we’ve built. To let the water flow again. To be baptised in streams of life. To run towards Our Father like little children who lost sight of Him for a moment but now see Him again and  cling tightly to the hem of his garment never wanting to be parted.

I read a devotional in The Ragamuffin gospel by Brennan Manning today which seemed to speak of these things. It resonated with me in many ways because I feel I’m in a season where God is asking me to again, step out of my comfort zone. To share more, to trust in Him and seek His face rather than approval. To spend more time alone with Him. To learn how He wants  me to share and use the blessings of time, money and resources that He’s given me. I’ll be honest, I’m scared. I’m naturally introverted. I like comfort. I fear new situations. But every time I take a teeny step forward into that dark unknown, I feel Him right there with me, by my side, and that is better than life itself. Like T.S Elliot wrote;  So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. 

I have been through many ups and downs in the last 25 years, but the only times that really shine out ( even if they were hard times) were the times I kept my eyes on God and leaned not on my own understanding, but clung to Him in surrender and trust.

‘Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, ‘tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home.’

He will my shield and portion be.

I got a pendant for my birthday this year with Deut 31:6 engraved on it.  Here is the verse.

‘Be courageous and strong, fear not, neither be cowardly neither be afraid before them; for the Lord your God that advances with you in the midst of you, neither will he by any means forsake thee, nor desert thee.‘

The Challenge to Grow - Brennan Manning The Ragamuffin Gospel

When God introduces creative tension into our lives by calling us to break camp, abandon the security and comfort of the status who and embark in perilous freedom on a new exodus, insecurity and procrastination may focus only on the darker implications of the challenge and plunge us anew into unhealthy guilt. Stubbornly to stand still when the Lord is clearly challenging us to growth is hard- hearted ness, infidelity and a dangerous lack of trust. But to start trekking across the desert impulsively without the guidance of the cloud and the fire is reckless folly. When God’s call is not clarified and the inner voice remains in distinct, our restlessness and interior disquiet May be signaling a new exodus into greater openness, vulnerability and compassion, a deeper purity of heart, a transformed mind and spirit. The landscape of the American church is littered with burned out bodies and abortive ministries born of unhealthy guilt and fear of resisting Gods will. 
Who will await us from guilt? Who will free us from the bondage of projectionist, perfectionism and moralism? Who will rewrite the script? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord!
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When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God and the priests who are Levite’s carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.
- Joshua 3:3-4