What do you want to do with your life? I want to be poor.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 5:3

I have just recently been in the Beatitudes this morning. I really enjoy them even though I don't understand why Jesus said what he said. However, last spring I attended a concert and the singer was talking about being poor.

Now I must be quite honest; I am not poor. I have never been poor and by the looks of the way my life is turning out I will never be poor. I state this simply to share with you a part of who I am. Growing up being poor was a negative thing. It was not looked upon as something you strive for.

"If you are poor you should work hard to become rich. You should be ashamed of the way you live and you should be ashamed of who you are. You must not have a good work ethic if poverty is a constant companion of yours."

This is the message that I was given growing up. This is the kind of culture that I have always been a part of. Poverty is a negative thing. Being poor is a negative thing. If you are poor you must have done something wrong or you must just be lazy.

Then I graduated high school and I moved to central Illinois. Even living in this culture I have come to the short realization that I have been blessed with a wealth that many people don't have. I have also been caught up in the theological debate that wealthy people can't be Christians. If this is true than I am up a creek without a paddle.

So I have once again stumbled into this paradox of Jesus. This singer that I mentioned earlier had something to say about this verse that I had never grasped before. She was speaking of a country she had visited that was covered in poverty. And she had read this Beatitude and discovered that she is called to be poor.

Christians of all kind are called to give up everything so that they may crave and hunger the only thing they need; Christ. To be spiritually poor so that I am constantly in need to Christ. I am constantly thinking about when I can get more Christ. So I must now choose my poverty, so that I may choose my desire to be with Christ.

I think that when we give everything, in this effort to be like Christ, we are left with only one reality ; we are here to be poor.