when abject poverty is a good thing

I sat and looked at the checkbook register, which showed a whopping balance of $11. 

And two weeks until a payday. 

Fresh out of college and living in a new town, we had barely started our jobs and were living in a sad, tiny little apartment where cigarette smoke wafted from next door and Guns and Roses blared all night from upstairs.  We had never been that low before. 

I held the checkbook in my hands and prayed, “Lord, help us.” 

The next day I opened the mail to find an envelope from an elderly woman from the church where I grew up.  She lived in an assisted living facility on a fixed income, but she sent us a check for $500.00. 

I will never forget that in our poverty God took care of us.  I consider it one of the richest moments of my life. 

Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:3  NIV) 

When we get to the lowest place in our soul, not financially but poor in energy, poor in love, poor in hope, that can be the richest time we ever experience.  I’ve been there before, too -holding my life in my hands and wondering how I can possibly make it another week. 

Jesus puts the word “blessed” (which means happy) and “poor” in the same sentence. 

Take your worn out soul to the Lord and declare bankruptcy.

a mandatory change of taste

I ate hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I was growing up –one of my favorite foods.   

Until one time I came down with a nasty head cold.  I made myself a PB&J, but it tasted horrible.  My stuffed up nose and inability to smell drastically changed how I experienced the taste of one of my favorite foods.  I ended up throwing the sandwich away. 

1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world.” 

Well, I have loved the world.  Clothes.  Dessert.  House décor.  You name it –I have loved it. 

So quite a while ago I started praying that God would make these things taste like that PB&J.  Flat.  Unappealing.  Unsatisfying.  Disappointing.   

I find myself in Target looking at the cheerful colors of the spring dishes in the housewares section (always a weak spot for me).  For a brief moment that love for stuff of the world rises up within me.  It’s a strong lust of the eyes –a feeling that I could only be happy if I owned these.  But then comes the flat-PB&J feeling, an experience deep in my heart of knowing these things on the shelves have pretty colors but offer nothing to satisfy my soul.  In that moment Satan’s salesmanship crashes into God answering my PB&J prayer. 

“The world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.”  (1 John 2:17) 

What do you love in the world, just absolutely love and feel like you have to have to be happy?  Take the PB&J prayer to it.

how to make Jesus part of your day

I only have to yell, “Dinner!”, and my husband takes over from there.

Sitting around the table after a long day of school and work, he looks first to my son and says, Tell me what happened in first period. We all laugh, because we know where this is going. It’s the same every day. We talk about first period - the funny, boring, embarrassing, frustrating, or discouraging moments of first period. We laugh a lot. My husband gives little bits of encouragement or sympathy or sometimes instruction on how to handle a situation better. Now tell me what happened in second period. Now third. Now fourth. On and on it goes through the seemingly trivial details of the day.

Then he turns to my daughter. Tell me about first period.

And our mealtime becomes an intimate, nothing’s-too-small, get-into-your-life event.

Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

It’s not about the food.

For him it's a constant act of loving deeply and caring about the minutiae of his children’s lives.

For us it’s knowing our Father is concerned about every detail, so we add to our lives the discipline of prayer that says, “Hello, come in” during first period. “Hello, come in” during second period. “Hello, come in” during third period.

two women and a VCR

Mom, do you remember the night the guys were gone, and we wanted to set the VCR to record a show? 

So we got out the instruction booklet.  I can’t remember –did you read and I pushed the buttons, or did I read and you pushed the buttons?

Step by step we followed the directions, and as we laboriously neared the end of the sequence we came to this instruction:

“But first…”

And I thought we would never stop laughing.  Did we ever get that show recorded?  I think we gave up.

I don’t know why that moment came to mind during church tonight, but I almost laughed out loud remembering it.  (That would have been bad, with my husband up there preaching and all.)

I catch myself doing that sequence all the time.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  But first...

But first…I should have prayed.
But first…I should have asked God what he wanted me to do.
But first…I should have humbled my heart.

 Matthew 6:33.  “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness…”

 Maybe it’s really helpful to get things in the right order.

call dad

Remember the movie Annie?  She was the curly-red-haired orphan who was adopted by the tycoon Mr. Warbucks. 

My dad worked hard and saved wisely and got to a place where he had a good bit of money.  He has always liked spending that money on me and my brother.  I don’t remember when we started to call him Daddy Warbucks.

My favorite trip to the mailbox is when I open the door and see a thin envelope that almost seems empty.  The return address shows my dad’s solid, block-letter handwriting that says, “Daddy Warbucks”.  Inside is nothing but a check with my name on it.

When I call dad and need a little financial help, he always says, “Just a second.”  And while I’m on the phone he writes a check, and he makes me repeat the amount I need, to make sure he’s getting it right .  He gets an envelope and a stamp.  He asks for my address (because he can never remember it).  Then, while I’m still on the phone, he walks to the mail box and puts the envelope in the mail. 

“It’s on its way” he says.

A centurion came to Jesus asking for help.  His servant was at home “paralyzed and in terrible suffering…Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go!  It will be done just as you have believed it would’  And his servant was healed at that very hour.”  (Matthew 8:6,13)

The God who is filthy rich is able to begin helping us when the request is barely out of our mouths.  We only need to come to him asking for help, believing he has the resources and authority to take care of the problem.

cleaning house

I’m so prone to hoeing things out that my husband says he has to keep moving or he’ll end up at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. 

I'm drawn toward the Shaker style of decorating –distinctly simple, useful, and finely crafted.  Everything else goes.

I helped my son do a deep cleaning of his room last week.  We gave away two sacks of clothes that didn’t fit him, and we filled a large sack with things that were taking up space but weren’t being used anymore.  That sack goes to the thrift store.

When Jesus walks into the temple he turns over the tables of the moneychangers, annoyed by the clutter.  He says to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer.”  (Matthew 21:13) 

We need to sit down with a cup of coffee and allow Jesus to walk through the rooms of our soul.  A large space needs to be made for prayer.  Any clutter must go.