Poor in Spirit

The gospel as it came to me as a kid was simple math. God’s good. You’re bad. Try harder.

And I tried. Lord knows I tried. But trying was the whole problem, because every time I fell short, and I always fell short, the message I heard wasn’t “come closer.” It was “do better.” After enough years of that, a boy stops reaching for God and starts hiding from Him. That version of the gospel never let me know Jesus. It only taught me to perform for Him.

Here’s what I’ve come to know. God is so good that He loved me right where I was. Not where I was supposed to be.

Where I was.

Nobody’s good enough to go to heaven. Nobody ever has been. That’s not bad news. That’s the doorway.

Jesus said heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. I used to think that meant the sad, or the humble in some polished churchy way. I don’t think that anymore. Poor in spirit means broke.

Poor in spirit means you’re broken and you know it.

It’s the human who finally gets to their knees and says, I need You. I can’t do this. I have run out of me.

I have been that person. In some ways I still am, every single day.

Brennan Manning had a word for people like us: ragamuffins. And he had one message for them: God loves you as you are, not as you should be. I wish somebody had told that boy I was.

Heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, and friend, I am poor in spirit. If you are too, here’s what I want you to know about Jesus: He loves you as you are, not as you should be.

Nobody is as they should be.