Rich or Poor

The fall days are beautiful here. Leaves are falling. (Cactus don’t do that.) I love it.

I went down with about 20 other students last night to a street known as Lower Wacker. This is a place where most park their cars, throw their trash, plug their nose, and drive through as fast as possible while not making eye contact so they won’t be shot (really a very irrational fear). What is rarely seen is the really beautiful community of people who call it home. I was blessed this week by a new friend named Lonzelo, a 58 year old man who lives on the streets of downtown Chicago. Lonzelo and I had a divine moment last night down on Lower Wacker, he touched my heart, and made an impact on my life. He stirred in my mind this question: What does it really mean for me, someone who follows Jesus each day, to be poor?

Let’s start at the beginning. Lonzelo brought up a question, and asked me why it is that nobody wants to die, but everyone wants to go to heaven? Really great question I thought. He wasn’t wasting anytime for sure. Well, before I could actually give an answer, he had one for me, which was good news because all I could think of was a David Crowder song that goes “everybody wants to go to heeeeeeaven but noooboddy wants to dieeeee.” Really great song, but probably wasn’t what he was looking for. Anyways, Lonzelo’s answer to his question. (Kind of an advantage to being homeless I think is having the time to think about very profound things in this life that no one has time for.) He started with the conveniences. How no one wants to die because they would have to lose all their things. And people like their things more than anything. The conveniences that so many are consumed by. The emails, the cars, the shoes, the phones, and the shelter. Things I rarely take a second look at. And it’s true, I would be very reluctant to give up any of those things at any given moment. And then what seemed to be a pretty light-hearted conversation took a turn when he said, “Brittany, would you rather be rich or poor?” (sort of implying that of corse my answer would be rich, which it wasn’t.) And in my head, there was a split second of ‘don’t kid yourself Brit, be honest’, but really the bottom line was that I would rather be poor. And my heart said to me, ‘You are called to something so much more than being rich.’ And in the very moments of putting an answer together that deserved a lifetime to figure out, he was very shocked to hear me say, ‘You know what Lonzelo, I would rather be poor.’ He looked at me and laughed, ‘You are crazy girl, who are you? Did your momma teach you anything?’ (Don’t worry mom, I defended you :) But it’s true, I would rather be poor. Against all human desires in me, I desire more than anything to be poor and humbled and simplified and content and broken and needy. Because I know that in this life, living for anything that is seen will die, but living for the unseen, that is eternal.

So right when I think I have some sort of basis for why I am choosing to be poor, Lonzelo hits me again. He looks at me with his very heavy, deep, and tired eyes and points over to a dirty corner on the sidewalk, and he says, “Why would anyone choose to lay on the concrete?” At that moment something in me felt very heavy. Because in some sort of way, I could feel Lonzelo’s hurt, I could see the weight of his loneliness, and I felt sad. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t, and I felt helpless. The words that kept flashing in red letters through my mind were - POOR IN SPIRIT - POOR IN SPIRIT - POOR IN SPIRIT - over and over. But here’s the thing, all of a sudden I had no idea what those words really meant. I know that Jesus said to be poor in spirit, I know that He was poor in spirit, I know that I want to be poor in spirit, and I know that it isn’t the first thing my spirit jumps in line for. So what do I do?

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

Proverbs 22:2
Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.

2 Corinthians 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

At this point I am left in the arms of God’s sovereignty and humbled by His love. Because I think in a sense, we all deserve to be on the concrete. Jesus took my poverty, and bared it in place of me. What makes Lonzelo different than me? Well, a lot physically. Because as I drive away to go home, his night in Lower Wacker never ends. He made really crappy decisions (he actually told me that himself), but so do I. In a mysterious crazy way, last night I felt equal with Lonzelo. As a human being, and in God’s compassionate eyes, I am. Lonzelo holds the same desires, the same needs (physically and spiritually), and the same broken heart that I do. So we both are in equal need of God’s grace on our lives. We both desperately need Jesus to take away our poverty. And that is so beautiful.

Whether I physically ever sleep on the concrete, we will see. But I know that in my heart, I want to sleep on the concrete every day.