I Do Not Get It.

Today is the first day of Amazon Prime Days.  So of course the first thing I did this morning was get up and start shopping.  I skipped right over my daily dose of CS Lewis quotes and what's in Matthew 5.  In the midst of the search for the perfect makeup foundation, I am reminded that this is no way to start my day.  My spiritual stomach is rumbling and I need that spiritual breakfast that no amount of shopping on Amazon will accomplish.  Duh.

So it's back to Matthew 5 for the umpeenth time.  I've been reading Matthew 5 for about 5 years now.  Each time I get through it, I wonder if I should move on and promptly realise that I still don't get it.  The poor in spirit?  What in the world is that, really?  Am I poor in spirit?  Do I not have enough spirit?  What's it like to be rich in spirit?  

And blessed.  Who wants to to be blessed by being poor?  Aren't we supposed to help the poor, not imitate them?  This is logic turned on it's head in so many ways.

I do not get it.

Fortunately for people like me who do not get it, there are several versions of the Bible that translate, or transliterate, the scriptures.  They read the original and do their best to translate it in to modern language.  My favorite of them all is The Message, transliterated by Eugene Peterson who was a great theologian of the modern day.  

Here's how he phrases it:

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and His rule."

OK now this I get.  I've been at the end up my rope so much in my life it isn't even funny.  There have been times I've been so desperate either in circumstance or spirit that I thought I'd never survive.  And I do mean literally, as in actually leaving this life.

But here's the thing: there is always more of God in those circumstances.  God is huge, He is the only thing to be seen.  He encompasses the entire landscape. I am reduced to being overwhelmed by the worst of myself, but that makes God even bigger.  He has always intervened not just to cheer me up or tell me jokes or tell me it's going to be ok.  Nope.  He actually comes in and fixes it.  What a concept.

Sometimes that means He fixes me and my perspective. other times the circumstances will change in such a way that it is unmistakeable that He's the One who did it.  It is impossible that something will happen that solves the problem, and yet I am rescued.  I am able to see through the pain or abject certainty that I wil never survive.  And money comes from somewhere,to pay the bill, or someone says "here, you've wrecked your car (and survived somehow) and I have one I can give you," or a job lost opens a door to a new job that is the best you've ever had and enables you to see what a trap you escaped.  Even something as mundane as a person walking into the room just as you're ready to take pills you know will certainly hurt and possibly kill you.  There is no mistaking it was Him.

My old friend Richard has a song with the line "Look up.  You could see if you'd just look up.  You're on the verge of a miracle, standing there, waiting to be believed in. Open your eyes and see."  That kind of encapsulates the entire concept.  Just. Look. Up.

So now it makes sense.  With less of me, there is more of God.  God becomes bigger than me, my perspective, my ability to fix it.  I am poor in spirit because I can't find a way out, but there is more of God.  We are always blessed when we have more of God.  

So Matthew 5:3.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  It is a cold stone fact that there is certainly more of God in heaven than there is me.

I get it, Lord.  Finally.  I get it.