This is how ....

I was reminded last night when our Bishop Cynthia Harvey visited our church of something important. Er, did I mention our Bishop, the top leader in the state we currently are living in -- the state of chaos perhaps -- came to our little ol' church in Eunice.

What a wonderful blessing to see someone so, oh, for the lack of a better word, personable, drive 1:45 hours to speak to a group of youth that belong to our community who just happen to show up here every Wednesday. What a wonderful and surprising blessing to see someone of her authority come here and talk about missions to a group that has been doing mission.

Whew.

But I digress.

She was talking about her childhood and she mentioned the fact that she never knew they were poor because everyone around them was poor.

Not surprisingly, that set me to thinking. About my childhood, and some facts I've never looked at. Upon reflection, we just might have been poor. We lived in a small house (that I miss to this day). We had a terrible looking shed in the back. My dad was an iron-worker, tying that stuff all over the place, working his hands to the bone sometimes. My mother worked at the "shirt" factor in Meridian, Miss., which I guess was some kind of seamstress, till she took at job working at Peavey's plant doing something or other.

But here's the thing. I never remember my needs not being met, nor did I ever really have my wants not addressed except (and my wife will be shocked when I write this) for that desire for a horse. The stick horse didn't count, at all. But as far as I remember, I never had bad clothes, or at least none that I hadn't destroyed playing in. I never went without food, often from our garden. I never lacked for, well, anything.

So, if we were actually poor, I never noticed at all. Heck, when I slept over at my friend's houses, theirs were in much worse shape than mine ever was. But we all survived. We all had, again, everything we needed to play whatever was the next sport.

Today's reading on my Youversion Bible says this of the path we walk together: "This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God."

As I read that this morning over coffee, I stuck on the words "living steadily and deeply in him."

Seems that's the formula for even the rich to get along. Living steadily and deeply in him would seem to be an answer for everything.

This morning, if you're not too far into work, pause for a second and reflect that if we're living steadily and deeply in him we have everything we would ever possibly need.

We're the woman washing his feet with our tears.
We're the woman at the well being presented water she couldn't understand.
We're the woman being he came for the Jews, not for her, till she says she could use a scrap or two, which prompts (in my version at least) a guffaw from Jesus and a way-to-go from the Master.

We're the disciples who need so much of the Spirit to understand just what the heck he's talking about. We're Peter whose eyes fell away and who sank like a stone. We're John, the beloved one, saying nothing as his friend was nailed to a cross. We're Stephen looking into heaven before those stones started flying.

We're Paul or better yet, Saul, who rode a horse, my horse, into infamy and blindness and yet came out the other side filled with the Spirit of God so much that he wrote much of what would become the New Testament.

What does this all mean? It means He is who He is, and if we live steadily and deeply in him, poor becomes a badge of love instead of a badge of embarrassment.

By the way, this reading follows 1 John 4: 10-12 which explained what the beginning, This is how, I reads, This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!"

Poor. Nah. Rich in all things.