Daily Lesson for April 23, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 5 verse 3:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Augustine once said, “God desires to give us so much but our hands are already full of so little.”

Our hearts can be full of little also. We can be full of all manner of things which matter not. Popcorn can fill a room; but it’s still mostly air. 

The poor in spirit are blessed because they do not pretend to be full. They are under no pretense or illusion. They know their own poverty. They know their own loneliness.

They know their own emptiness. 

And they know nothing can fill the emptiness in their lives but God.

Poverty of spirit opens us to the grace of God’s comfort and friendship. It opens us to receive what cannot be earned. It opens us to the kingdom of heaven which can only open to us when we realize the kingdoms of earth can never truly satisfy.

Emptiness is the door through which the Christ presence enters. Christ enters through loneliness and brokenness and through poverty of spirit and death. This is what Sheldon Vanauken called “a severe mercy”.  And it is the only way to heaven.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for to such as these the kingdom belongs.”