Jonathots Daily Blog
(2411)
Three billion people in the world live on less than $2.50 a day. That is nearly half.
46.5 million people in the United States live below the poverty line. That’s 15% of adults and 21.8% of children.
Yet we still continue to persist in the popular belief that prosperity is determined by blessing and that the evidence of sin, iniquity or evil is accentuated by the curse of being impoverished.
It is the populie:
- If all is going well, God is with me.
- If I face my share of adversity, God has abandoned me.
This populie is spun by the entertainment industry, which places physical beauty above the bounty of spirit.
Politics wholeheartedly believes that money is the proof of value.
And religion teaches that the prophets of old suffered persecution, while publicly insisting that a gospel of God’s favor being shown through prosperity.
But the spiritual rate of exchange in the universe is good cheer. Let me relate a story.
When a Christian adoption organization went into Central America to attempt to raise funds for the children, who were ravaged by inadequacy and financial desperation, all of the pictures of the little ones were peppered with smiles. They finally had to teach them how to frown in order for the cameras to convey the desperate message to the hard-hearted Americans.
The reason the children were so delighted–aside from the fact that this was the way they had learned to live–was that one of the camera men had wrapped a large rock in duct tape, and the children were suddenly blessed with a soccer ball.
America has become both paranoid and neurotic over its own greed. Because we have made beauty and money the center of our consciousness, we are incapable of being satisfied with anything less.
Even though good cheer is the only true way to overcome all circumstances and to react to all benefits, we allow ourselves the luxury of being depressed when confronted with difficulty and produce a phony sense of joy when we win the lottery. Yet a followup on most lottery winners shows that it fails to bring contentment, but rather, conflict and destitution.
So the fact of the matter is, it is impossible to attain sanity without eliminating craziness. And if you believe that the sun coming out on your wedding day means approval for your union, and rain falling on the same occasion might be an omen from God of pending disaster, then your next stop will probably be medication for your depression or ending up in a loony bin.
The only way to truly be blessed as a human being is to receive what is provided, find a way to work with it and maintain a sense of balance and good cheer.
If I were to look in the mirror to determine my value, I might end up suicidal.
If I ascertained the presence of God in my life by my financial take-in this year, I would probably believe myself abandoned.
But this has been one of the greatest years of my life–because the trial of my faith has taught me patience, which has allowed me to learn how to have good cheer in all realms.
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