Blessed... Who?
By Paul Ravenhill

Blessed are the poor in spirit... they that mourn... the meek...
      How much does our generation really know of the gospel message?

Do we realize that:
      The poor is the one without Possession...
            The mourner is the one without Comfort...
                  The meek is the one without Place

Do we realize that: We have inverted the values of the kingdom? How we avoid the one who transmits a sense of need, and flock to the one who "has" sufficiency of spirit and overflowing self-confidence. How we shun the one who mourns the emptiness of everything human and instead seek those who exude "wholeness", good humor and a sense of being "with it." How we steer away from the meek and seek those who have a secure place of recognition and authority within the church.

The church of our generation has forgotten the true nature of the kingdom of God.
The kingdom (as human society) is never saved by the mainstream of its inhabitants....
We are always saved by the outsiders...
              the ones who are uncomfortable in our midst...
                  the ones in whose presence we feel uncomfortable...
      a Gideon in his frustration crying, "God...where?"
      a David crying out in his blind search, "God...why?"
      a Livingstone crying from the depths of Africa, "When?"

It is the people with an aching hole inside...
      The people with an anguish and a cry,
            Those frustrated by earth's limitations,
              The ones who can't accept the need to conform...the need to trot
              out facile answers...
Those who look beyond easy words, emotional manipulation, glib self-confidence, are they who will find the true essence of the kingdom.

God seeks lives that have seen the depths and the heights...
      those who turn away from man's easy formulations and watered down gospel.

There is a promise of finding... to those who are truly seeking...
Is our generation not really finding Him because we are not really seeking Him???

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