Daily Manna · Day 329 · November 25
Poor in Spirit
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Maybe you have been pretending to have a strength you do not really have. It might be at work, or in your marriage, or in the group where everyone assumes you are the one with the answers. Keeping up the act now costs you more than whatever it was protecting.
Jesus opens the most famous sermon ever preached by calling people like that blessed: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He begins with the people who have run out.
The word "poor" matters here, because English hides a difference that Greek makes plain. Greek had one word for the working poor, a man who has to work for every meal and has nothing to spare. Jesus does not use that word. He uses the other one, the beggar's word, which comes from a verb meaning to crouch or cower. It describes a person who has nothing at all and can only hold out a hand. To be poor in spirit is to be in that condition on the inside. It is more than polite humility. It means being empty and knowing it.
Then notice the tense. Most of the blessings that follow promise something later: "they shall be comforted," "they shall inherit the earth," "they shall be filled." This first one speaks in the present: "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus says the same about the persecuted in verse ten, and here He gives it to people who, by definition, brought nothing to trade for it. That tells you getting in was never a trade. People who feel they have enough walk past the door with their hands full. God is not keeping anything from them, but nobody can receive a kingdom while holding on to everything else.
So find the sentence you have not been able to say, and say it once this week to one person who has earned the right to hear it: "I do not know what I am doing here." Then say the same thing to God without dressing it up first. He will not be surprised. Empty hands are open hands, and open hands are the ones He fills with His kingdom.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 329 is Whereby Shall I Know (Genesis 15:6).