POOR IN SPIRIT
A few weeks ago a new Pastor friend of mine was telling me about a sermon she heard on the beatitudes, one of which being ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’
This made me stop and think. Right now walking through painful grief, I can relate to truly feeling poor in spirit. So I decided to look more deeply. Sometimes for something to be truly appreciated, it has to be studied and mulled over like a beautiful piece of art. I decided not to listen to the sermon but find the truth for myself
The more I read the more I related, and began to see that her reminder of that verse was like a message from Heaven.
Why do I relate…Not only am I grieving the loss of my husband, soul mate and best friend, but also the loss of identity, companionship, future, vision, provision, affection, decision making etc… the list could go on and on. I am walking in very unfamiliar territory, where nothing is comfortable, and I feel incredibly vulnerable. A lot that I had held security in has been stripped away, leaving a big gaping hole where my life once was. The every day simple things I could rely on like a call from him to see how I was, or how an appointment went, or what’s for dinner was gone. Knowing he would be there at the end of the day for a hug and a chat, having someone to bounce ideas off, make decisions with and plan ahead with was gone. My life is forever changed, coming to terms with that is a grief all on its own. So yes, I feel weak and poor in Spirit.
Then I saw that God’s blessing rests on the “poor in spirit”. Made me dig deeper, who doesn’t want God’s blessing, especially now!! Once I saw what this was, then I knew I needed to know how to pursue it. I saw I needed to cultivate humility and wage war against pride that seeks to distance me from God.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3
Poor in Spirit does not mean literally being poor with no money, it is speaking of an attitude in heart, a revelation of who we are, and who God is. It means that you realize and have a revelation of what you lack. It’s acknowledging that you don’t have what it takes. You have nothing to offer God in the physical that He doesn’t already have, essentially realising your poverty before God. When you are face to face with God and His overwhelming glory and awesomeness we really have nothing He needs apart from our love for Him.
I believe getting a revelation of who we are without God is the first step to knowing who we are with God. Right now, I need God with everything in me, I cannot get through a day without acknowledging my need for Him to get me through by His overwhelming grace, mercy and love. There’s an emptiness that no other source can fill other than God’s love, I know it! I live it! Because some days I do just want to hide, and pretend this isn’t my life, and hibernate until all the pain is gone and I begin to feel whole again. However I can’t, and therein for me lies the overwhelming reality of my need for a God that is bigger than what I feel and see before me.
Life can get very busy, and circumstances can keep us from understanding this need. It isn’t until life gives us a harsh wake up call that we come to that realisation. I wish it wasn’t the case. I’d like life to be plain sailing, but that’s not reality. The Bible doesn’t even elude to that, in fact becoming Christians makes us even more of a target for the enemy, and promises us that trials WILL happen.
My last blog was about being resilient. So perhaps even now therein lies a key to this Christian life. If we are to become overcomers, and bounce back through every storm life throws at us, the first step is to acknowledge our need for God, allow that to feed our hunger for Him. Draw closer to Him knowing in Him is life, hope and the faith to carry on. So that every time we look back, we can see how it has only been Him who has seen us through. With this then comes the revelation that I can face whatever life throws at me, as painful as it may be, because I know in God I am more than a Conqueror. The key is ‘IN GOD!’
Being poor in spirit for me is a charachteristic of a person who genuinely walks with God. You may be a multi-talented, a high flyer and mega-successful in business. You may be a super mum, a talented musician, a technical superman. But if you have truly met with God, you will know that before Him you have nothing to offer. So just like Job, a man of right standing, a man who up until that point had been very blessed. Life threw one of the greatest tests his way, of course he had questions. So when he did ask as to why he had to walk through such tragedy, he wasn’t met with the answers he was looking for, rather met with the wonder of who God is. In the light of what he saw it silenced the questions, and instilled a revelation for Job that God is bigger than all of this. Under the care of such a God, he would be okay.
Isaiah was a pretty talented prophet, who had been in ministry for a very long time, when he spoke people listened, yet when he met with God, he saw himself very differently, he realised his loss before an almighty God. He was poor in spirit.
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up and his robe filled the temple. The seraphim called out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” The foundations shook. The house was filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me! For I am lost…” Isaiah 6:1–4
This great prophet was lost, he saw he was lost without God. Sometimes we can be so busy in the doing, that perhaps God’s glory never really gets a chance to make an impression on us? Maybe pride gets in the way and pushes God out of the picture just far enough for us not to be affected by the realisation of our need for Him every single day. No one likes to feel needy, it’s a horrible feeling. We like to feel like were in control, well I do anyway, but boy oh boy I am really not in control, life cannot be controlled or managed so that we never feel needy, or lost or pain. So the only solution is to let go and trust God. I know that’s easier said than done.
When I do let go and surrender it opens the way for the presence of God. The Bible describes that when God’s presence came down smoke filled the temple. Smoke chokes, it suffocates, and makes you long for air, perhaps that’s what it does to pride, and leaves a cry within our hearts for God to save us. It also clouds out everything else in life in the presence of the majesty of God, it forces us to see only what is important and clear.
I noticed that all the other beatitudes speak of a future tense, whereas this one says the blessing is now, “for theirs IS the kingdom of Heaven.”
Wow, this is something I can live in now if I choose it. Again Isaiah describes where God dwells…
“Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy:“I dwell in the high and holy place,[that’s heaven] but also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.” Isaiah 57:15
If we are poor in spirit we get a taste of that blessing, because God comes to live with us, in the mess, in the pain, in the confusion, where He is more real than ever before.
I don’t know about you but I want to move beyond a vague, religious belief where God lives at a distance from me. I want to feel every day the felt awareness of God’s presence in my life, Seeing me through until I reach a clearing and feel I can truly breathe and move in the freedom that God created for me. So this is where I must begin, where God dwells, with the humble and poor in spirit.
Woven through my studies were some themes that I recognised as I began to look at this more:
A. People who are poor in spirit don’t believe that God owes them anything. He’s not our servant, or a big Father Christmas in the sky that gives us what we want because we demand it, or expect it from Him.
Our faith should lie in who He is, not in what He gives. Knowing that everything we have is His anyway, and living like that is gospel to us. So when the circumstances of our lives don’t go the way we want them to, when what we held onto is taken, we aren’t shaken and disappointed. Rather we trust that He knows what’s best, and even though it hurts He is in control. Even when it doesn’t make any sense.
This is very hard to walk out, because we cannot see Him, whereas the circumstances can be so overwhelming, the loss so painful that it screams in your face, and is very real to you. I’m walking this one out every day. I have to keep reminding myself that God has got Chloe and I, and He won’t let us go. That we can trust Him, that we can rely on Him, no matter how we feel or what we see before us. To constantly fight the urge to just cover the pain with other distractions instead of taking it to Him.
Perhaps again pride lies at the root of that? Pride says, “I gave Him something. He owes me something bigger and better than what I got.” I hold my hands up to that, reminding Him what he took from me, and declaring He better refund me big time! But if Pride leads to disappointment, bitterness and resentment and kills His blessing, boy I better watch my mouth.
B. People who are poor in spirit are not afraid to ask. After all the poor are always in need, because they know their need without God.
So those that are in need tend to have a very active prayer life, they come before God empty handed, knowing that only within the presence of God can they walk away full, with answers. Following that all the joy, peace and hope they need for each new day. Only there can they see a change in their lives and the community they live in.
Jesus met the needs of those who knew not only their need but their world’s need of Him. We should never be like the Pharisees who walked around pious believing they had no need of anyone as they were righteous by their own means and practices.
This places us in a position to receive, because our hands are empty, our hearts open and desperate for Him. I’m certainly desperate for Him. I can only hope I am always in that place, even when life becomes smooth again.
C. People who are poor in spirit get a revelation of the cross
“Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”…Galatians 6:14
The more I see my vulnerabilty, my emptiness and my loss without Christ in my pain and in my future the more I see my need for Christ, and the absolute overwhelming thankfulness arises for what Jesus did for me on that cross.
I’m reminded of that old hymn:
“I will not boast in anything, no gifts or power or wisdom.
But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward, I cannot give an answer.
But this I know with all my heart; His wounds have paid my ransom.”
Watching James suffer, watching him die was the worst experience of my life. To this day it haunts me, and I’m walking through the counselling I need to get past it. But I will never forget the revelation it gave me of what God sacrificed to see His only son be brutally tortured and killed so that He could have relationship with His creation free from the law. There is NO greater price, no greater love.
I remind myself and Chloe that this is how much He loves us. We’re solely his girls now, and though it baffles my mind that He loves Chloe more than James did or I do, I have to keep reminding myself that this love will see us through, fill those voids, and His perfect love will conquer all fear of what lies ahead.
So yes, I come empty handed, I have nothing to offer God, he has everything to offer me — everything pertaining to life and godliness. So I keep reminding myself through the pain and loss, He is “El Shaddai’ our God who is more than enough.
