"Blessed are the poor in spirit."
The message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) produces despair in those who haven't been born again of the Spirit. This is exactly what Jesus intends it to do. As long as we cling to the self-righteous idea that we can follow His teaching apart from Him, we will eventually discover that we cannot. God often allows us to come to the end of ourselves so that we will come to Him with empty hands, ready to receive His grace.
The bedrock of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty—not possessions or making a decision to follow Jesus Christ, but a sense of total futility, a knowledge that we can't even begin to follow God's teaching on our own. That is the entrance; that is when Jesus says, "Blessed are you." It does take us a long time to accept the fact that we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.
— Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
This is an excerpt from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I've included two links below: one to the daily devotional on the official website and another to the book on Amazon if you'd like your own copy. I'm not an Amazon affiliate, so I receive nothing if you use either link.
Now, let's get to the heart of today's post.
Christians are often encouraged to share their testimony. Mine isn't a thirty-second elevator speech. It's a story with many chapters, and for the past three years I've struggled to figure out how to tell it without taking half an hour. Then, during my devotional time this morning, the answer became clear.
Everything that happened before April 2023 tells the story of God's protection and faithfulness through difficult seasons. But April 2023 marks the beginning of a different chapter.
My husband unexpectedly lost the job he had faithfully worked for seventeen years. Seventeen years of loyalty were over in an instant. While the financial uncertainty was frightening, what devastated me most wasn't the loss of the job, it was watching the man I love break down in tears. We've known each other for twenty-six years and have shared twenty-two of those as husband and wife. I had never seen him so broken, and I couldn't fix it.
That moment brought me to my knees.
I'd known about Jesus since I was a little girl. I went to church. I took my children to church. I believed the right things and would have confidently said, "Yes, I'm saved." But if I'm honest, Jesus often occupied the edges of my life rather than the center of it. I still wanted to be in control. It wasn't that I rejected Christ; it was that I hadn't fully surrendered every part of my life to Him. There is a difference between knowing about Jesus and learning to trust Him with everything.
Matthew 6:25–34 became more than familiar verses. They became an invitation to trust the One who promises to care for His children.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life..." (Matthew 6:25–34)
Those verses reminded me that my security had never been found in a paycheck, a retirement account, or carefully laid plans. My security has always been, and always will be, in God's faithful provision. Looking back, I believe the defining moment of my testimony wasn't when I could recite a date or point to a baptism certificate. Those were important milestones in my faith journey, but my testimony truly took shape the day I came before the Lord with nothing left to offer except complete surrender. That doesn't mean life suddenly became easy. It means I finally understood who was carrying me through it.
Following Christ doesn't remove trials. It changes how we walk through them. Instead of relying on my own strength, I now have the assurance of God's presence, His promises, and His faithfulness. People often ask what they would change if they could live life over again. Honestly, I don't think I would change the hardest seasons.
Without them, I don't believe I would know God as I do today. I wouldn't understand what it means to depend on Him completely. I wouldn't have learned that sometimes the greatest blessing comes when we finally realize we have nothing left to depend on but Christ. Perhaps that's exactly what Oswald Chambers meant when he wrote that the entrance into Christ's kingdom begins with knowing we are poor in spirit.
Sometimes God allows us to reach the end of ourselves so we can finally discover that He is more than enough.
Peace,
B
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