While poverty is certainly upheld in the Gospels as a positive state of life, where material things no longer distract us from God, the real world experience of poverty is not always a rosy picture.
In truth, being poor can often make us grumble against God, questioning his goodness to us.
We might ask God in anger, "Why are we poor, while everyone else is rich?"
The key is to approach our poverty as the loving hand of God in our lives.
Rich in spirit while poor in the world
St. Francis de Sales comments on this spiritual topic in his Introduction to the Devout Life.
He starts out by reminding us to have patience and recognize that we are in good company:
Patience then, you are in good company. Our Dear Lord, Our Lady, the Apostles, numberless Saints, both men and women, were poor, and although they might have been rich, disdained to be so. How many great ones of this world have gone through many difficulties to seek holy poverty amid hospitals and cloisters...You have met poverty without seeking it—do you then embrace it as the beloved friend of Jesus Christ, Who was born, lived and died in poverty, and cherished it all His Life.
Additionally, St. Francis de Sales explains to us how we should recognize our poverty as part of God's divine plan:
[I]t is not your own choice, but God’s Will alone, which has made you poor. Now, whatever we accept simply because it is God’s Will is acceptable in His Sight, so long as we accept it heartily and out of love:—the less of self the more of God,—and a singlehearted acceptance of God’s Will purifies any suffering very greatly.
This can be one of the more difficult aspects of being poor, especially when we are suffering in a physical way.
It isn't easy to see God's divine plan in the midst of any pain, anxiety and suffering that accompanies our poverty.
It is especially difficult to resist complaining, which St. Francis de Sales encourages us to do:
Do not complain then of your poverty, my daughter,—we only complain of that which is unwelcome, and if poverty is unwelcome to you, you are no longer poor in spirit. Do not fret under such assistance as is needful; therein lies one great grace of poverty
Yet, the truth is that God is always there, at our side. We often don't recognize his presence or his love in the moment.
After we have lived a life of poverty, we can often look back and see God's hand, acknowledging the reality that he gave us this poverty for a reason.
