Fighting to Be Poor?

I have been listening to Matt Chandler’s sermons on Ecclesiastes. The entire book is about Solomon expending his whole life on finding out if anything under the sun has intrinsic value. What he discovers is that all the trinkets, clothes, food, new things, etc are but a means to add something new to our humdrum and monotonous lives. That is what life is without faith. If we don’t have faith, everything is meaningless. We will all die and our stuff given away and name forgotten.

I have often lately been thinking about wealth, accumulation of stuff, and what my future lifestyle will look like. Will my life look like my parents? Will I live in a nice house in America all my life never worrying about where my next meal comes from? Will I get to have luxuries beyond necessities? Will I be poor? Will I be a sender, a missionary, or a mobliizer? All of this is hidden from me…and I believe for my benefit. Without faith it is impossible to please God and in Ecclesiastes 3 it says that we don’t know everything for a reason. I don’t know what my life will look like, but I wrestle with the thoughts of being well off. I have always had this wrong notion that being wealthy is the same as not being very spiritually mature. As if to say, if you have been given lots of money you should not own a big house, but give away all your money to people who need it and if you aren’t doing that, than you’re probably not doing what the Lord wants from you. Before you put in the air hockey table, you are, being a Christian, to give the money to something else. I struggle with thinking that being well off is a blessing, quite possibly because many Christians do use their wealth to serve themselves first. If the Lord does choose to bless me with material wealth, I pray that I do not consider it my own and to be used just for my own pleasure. I know how prone I am to wander. I know that what Matt says about us thinking we need more is a endless cycle only leading to death.

I don’t want to end up like that. But here is the kicker in what I am wrestling with now. As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3, we are to enjoy life. We are to enjoy it when we have more than enough food, we have health, friends, family, etc. AND we are to enjoy life when we are sick, poor, in pain, mourn, and are hurting because those are times that God has made for a season of molding us and making everything beautiful in it’s time. I don’t think having nice things is a sin. If I believed this, I would be a hypocrite. I own nice things. I have 10x over plenty. Yet, the difference from the world and a Christian containing nice things is this: that we do not hold onto them, nor seek to believe they give us any more joy in life. We must realize this. Jesus is what makes all other things good. Outside of Christ, we can have things and never get the full measure of pleasure from them. I pray God would keep me from a judgmental heart towards the wealthy; they have been given much and in return are demanded much from the Lord. I am demanded to use what I own for the sake of His name, understanding everything including life and breath are but a gift from him.

I want the Lord to break me of my attitude towards wealth. I don’t believe it is the way the Lord sees it fully. I tend to believe being poor equals holiness. This is a lie. Learning from Ecclesiastes, the Lord has ordained our days, the time period we were to live, the place, the circumstances, etc. There is nothing that he hasn’t allowed or isn’t in control of. That means, that when I feel guilty for having nice things when others in Africa have little, I am not called to resent my gifts and blessings. I am called to think of the poor and to use my wealth to help them, to have compassion, to praise God with a grateful heart for his provisions, and accept the Lord’s plan for my life. The reality is that I did not choose the life I’ve been given. Therefore, it is wrong to think the Lord didn’t know what he was doing by placing me to live in the 21st century, granting me loving parents, a functional home life, amazing friends, money in my pocket, food, clean water, a nice car, etc. I am not to feel guilty for having such things.

I think Satan wants us to feel God is the enemy of enjoyment and of good things—such is where my thoughts about holy poverty come in. He is the destroyer and the Lord is the one who brings life to all that is good. But make no mistake, there will be no life, even for the Christian, who seeks to find fulfillment or satisfaction in anything under the sun outside of his hand granting the gifts. I am not going to lie; there is something that feels so much freer at times when I don’t have anything. I think that’s why I enjoy camping, getting dirty, waking up so late that you don’t have time to care about what you look like, being sweaty and having blisters on my hands, sobbing, and having to be frugal. There’s something refreshing to my soul when I am helping, not serving myself, forgetting about myself and how I appear, and having few things to claim as my own. I don’t feel as much a slave to the ownership or feel the responsibility of ownership for things in my life. I love that feeling, even if that’s not the life the Lord had for me. I am still trying to let his ideas of wealth, prosperity, fame, fortune, nice things, luxuries seep into my heart to transform lies I’ve believed. As Solomon says though, the rich are wanting the life of the poor and the poor the life of the rich, desiring each others lifestyles. The rich think the poor have it so well because they don’t have to worry about so much and are carefree and at rest. The poor think the rich have it so easy, are relaxed get to have all the joy and pleasures life could offer and by way of wealth, life would be better. However, Solomon will say that both are meaningless. Both groups will in 60 years die and be buried and no one remember them. Both are meaningless. I am being really challenged to dwell on these thoughts, which are not easy ones to ponder: death, wealth and poverty. Which one pleases the Lord most? The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please the Lord. It is less about stuff and more about my faith in whatever his plans are for me. This is what my heart needs to believe is true. I need to believe he really wants my faith more than works.