Blessed be the poor [in spirit]

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:2-3

On my commute to work, I often see homeless people, and I try to help them out when I can, either with some food, or some money, but I often feel like it wasn't enough, I feel like my actions are not good enough, and this sucks.

I started to think about why it sometimes disturbs us to see the homeless, to see poverty and see these people suffering, and it occurred to me that it's because sometimes we see some of ourselves in these people.


Allow me to explain.


Our money defines a lot of who we are. It decides what kind of clothes we buy and wear, and therefore our exterior image and the initial impressions we make to people, it defines where we go, for example, if we have $$$ we eat at mortons, not so much - sizzler, it defines where we live. Our money is almost like a shell around us, things that need to be moved in order to get what's really inside of us.. our soul and our spirit.

So when we see extreme poverty, the homeless, the broken, we can see the vulnerability of the human spirit, what a man looks like without the shell of our money and our position. What would you look like?

So this gets me thinking to what Jesus says here, the poor in spirit. We're blessed, or perhaps, able-to-be-blessed, when our spirit isn't surrounded by a shell that we think defines us, but is open fully open to him.