Sometimes when we rely only on ourselves, we think that we must do everything, and because we are so hard-working, we can become subtly prideful. After all, we are doing so much and so many rely on us, that we must be very important! If we're deriving our self-image from our efforts, then it becomes easy to not want others to share the work and the acclaim, because that takes away from our own self-importance. Spiritual poverty - the ability to recognize that all gifts and all accomplishments come from God, not us - helps us to be humble, to encourage others to develop their gifts and their sense of responsibility, and to point to God to receive the praise instead of ourselves.
It is also spiritual poverty when we learn to say "no" to another responsibility because with humble realism we accept that we are neither Lords of Time or able to bi-locate. Saying "no" means that now we have the time and energy we need to give greater attentiveness to the people and responsibilities to whom we've already given our committed "yes." We surrender again to God, Who will handle the person/responsibility we say "no" to and place it/them in the proper hands.
When we place our lives - the people we love, our gifts, the situations that bewilder and perplex us because of their complexity - into God's hands, we become truly free. We can become joyful because we know who we truly are, sons and daughters of God Who is eternally faithful to us. "Indeed how good is the Lord, eternal His merciful love," says the psalmist.
Two people reminded me of these truths lately. One friend, who has had an addict in her family, was sharing with me how glad she is that this relative has been "clean" for a year now. Now she has another relative who is in a situation of domestic abuse. She told me this: "I left the one who is an addict totally in God's hands, and look - he's "clean" for a year now. So now I'm leaving the one who is a victim of domestic abuse in God's hands too." What a woman of great faith she is! She has surrendered those who are most dear to her into the hands of a loving God.
My other friend, a Doctor, told me that he knew he was close to being in the "red" because his reimbursements have grown smaller and smaller, his malpractice insurance has skyrocketed, as have the costs of his equipment, and the amount of his paperwork is controlling his life. He looked and looked for a new situation - no luck. Finally one day he said "God, this is beyond me. I put this in your hands." The next day, he received a phone call from a colleague, who offered him a position in a Federal Health Clinic because of his great love and respect for all his patients. He accepted. He told me "I don't know how this will work out, but right now it's the answer to a prayer. And it didn't happen until I placed the situation - my practice and my life - in God's hands."
This is the kind of poverty that Jesus practiced, - to obediently accept our poverty as limited, fragile human beings who need God. In the classic "Poverty of Spirit," Johannes Baptist Metz says
"To become a man as Christ did is to practice poverty of spirit, to obediently accept our innate poverty as human beings.....There is the poverty of the average man's life, who is unnoticed by the world. It is the poverty of the commonplace. There is nothing heroic about it; it is the poverty of the common lot, devoid of ecstasy.
"Jesus was poor in this way. He was no model figure for humanists, no great artist or statesman, no diffident genius. He was a frighteningly simple man, whose only talent was to do good. The one great passion in his life was 'the Father.' Yet it was precisely in this way that he demonstrated 'the wonder of empty hands,' (Bernanos) the great potential of the man on the street, whose radical dependence on God is no different from anyone else's. He has no talent but that of his own heart, no contribution to make except self-abandonment, no consolation save God alone."
Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J. (1888-1955) said this wise prayer to God:
"Let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud.
"Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly.
"Let me realize that when I am most humble I am most human, most truthful, and most worthy of Your serious consideration."
Of course when we surrender our lives, our hearts, and our loved ones to God, this is no guarantee of what will happen. A loved one may commit suicide, or be the victim of a nasty divorce. We may develop a serious illness. We may lose a job. Death comes to everyone at one time or another.
God does not "control" people or circumstances - God offers His powerful wisdom and courage and love, but we or others are free to reject God's help, and God never imposes Himself. But Jesus, in his radical spiritual poverty, accepted the reality of the human condition, accepted his exhaustion, his homelessness, his rejection by others, his eventual death, trusting that in the end, in Great Mystery, His Father would provide. Mysteriously, beyond our understanding, God can and will bring all things to the good for those who love God. All we can do is radically rely on our Father as Jesus did - and await the many varieties of resurrected new life which God offers us.
When we know our absolute reliance on God, our joy comes from the realization that everything wonderful in our lives comes from God, directly to us as acts of love. The beautiful sunset over the harbor. The family birthday party. Our friends. Those who love us unconditionally and forever. The simple food on our table. The dog or cat who will never voluntarily leave us. The created world which cries out for our attentiveness so that we do not spoil this gift. Absolute reliance on God gives us absolute freedom, joy, and gratitude. What could be better?!