The night after our return from vacation, I woke to the sound of torrents cascading from hidden skies. Clouds hung low the rest of the week, heavy, and dark, leaving pools of water in the many potholes outside our door. Welcome to summer in Tianjin— which begins wet and humid, and proceeds to less wet and yet more humid, a weather pattern I still don’t understand.
Less than 24 hours after arriving home, Josh left on a sudden work-related trip. I took it in stride, prepped the coffee before bed, planned to rise early and get in the writing hours my final thesis requires. Then in addition to the thunder, I woke to the sound of Zoë coughing, crying in that pathetic way babies do when they are sick. The rest of the night she slept fitfully in my arms as I tried to catch whatever erupted out of her raging insides.
The first morning went by, and then another.
Routine, I said weakly to the other children, somewhat under my breath. It’s time for our summer routine.
I was expecting a lot of pushback. Memorization? Reading lists? Daily chores? Sounds like great fun, mom. I had seen the older two perusing pictures of friends away at summer sport camps, starting internships, spending time with their cousins. What we had to offer in the way of activities felt beyond meager.
And let’s not kid ourselves, it is meager. Which leads to a question I constantly run up against, one that I put to myself in countless ways: where is the abundant life to be found?
The temptation is twofold: when provision abounds and I see others being “blessed”— materially, or spiritually, or otherwise— I can tend towards believing that the goodness of God in the land of the living is manifested by kids who are turning out well, the provision of a job, or the purchase of a house.
But conversely, and perhaps even more insidiously, when my circumstance feels poor— materially, or spiritually, or otherwise— I can tend towards believing that the upside down kingdom of God rewards and sustains especially those who have less. Blessed are the poor, I tell myself, in summer activities, or sports programs, or church life, for theirs is the real ground on which God can build his kingdom.
Your kids will have better character, I whisper to myself. Or, God will meet you in deeper and more profound ways. Your poverty is what brings you closer to him.
It is an easy temptation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” are the very words of Jesus. And I take those words seriously. I do believe and have seen that those who are poor in spirit are often the most ready to receive the kingdom.
But in accepting that God uses my impoverished places to do his good work, does not mean I must only and always seek out those places. It’s a sneaky lie that begins to put oneself above others because we think we have the harder lot.
In, A Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard wrote extensively about Jesus’ teaching of the Beatitudes. “No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on, or that the conditions listed are recommended ways to well-being before God or man,” he writes.
“They are explanations and illustrations […] of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. They single out cases that provide proof that, in him, the rule of God from the heavens truly is available in life circumstances that are beyond all human hope.”
The truth is, that I’m not better or worse off because of the meagerness of my situation. A life surrendered to God is the only material he requires. That life can be rich or poor, filled with great provision, or severe lack.
“[The Beatitudes] serve to clarify Jesus’ fundamental message: the free availability of God’s rule and righteousness to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus himself, the person now loose in the world among us.”
I am not saying many other things here that need saying. I am not addressing that suffering is written somehow into the fabric of the universe and is a means by which God brings redemption. “It is through many trials that we must enter the kingdom of God,” were Paul’s words to the early church. I am not addressing the way Jesus warns those who are rich, and the hard words he has for the wealthy seeking to enter the kingdom. These things are all also true.
What I am wrestling with is the temptation to take a truth and use it in a way that makes me feel better, but that ends up being sort of untrue.
Sometimes we struggle with the little we have, the way we wish we had more to work with, more to offer. And it is tempting for me to comfort myself by spiritualizing the struggle to mean I am better off for my poor condition.
And perhaps I am. But only if I compare myself with myself, and not with another place or another person. I am better off in this very circumstance than any other circumstance simply because I can surrender it to God, and he can be trusted to do his good will with it. Jesus is loose in the world, and reliance on him is freely available to me no matter where or what the circumstance.
I want to bear witness to the fact that in my meager summer routine, God is at work. The good response I have seen from my kids is part of his provision. The mornings I don’t get to do what I wish are also seen and somehow blessed. The good that happens is from him, and the frustrating and difficult is not lost to his redemptive hand.
He blesses the poor, but he doesn’t require us to be so. He just requires us.
So, so good. Thank you.
Yes. Just yes and amen.