The Building of Elegant Poverty


Outside the battered door is a courtyard of gravel.  Here men walk without shoes and fall to their ravaged knees.  Yet there is smooth cool stone inside, bloodstained by the feet and knees of those who have entered.

The plants which adorn the court are but missshapen bushes, yet elegant to he who owns the place.  By design, its appearance refuses the praise of the elegant and proud.  Only the desperate poor come here.

Within the door, the floor shines from wearing.  Billions of feet have scuffed it to a fine polish.  The walls depict the beauty of promise; the promise of hope and the promise of accomplishment. 

Those who enter are bid “Welcome”.  While embrace endures restraint.  Commanded are they who attend the visitors, “Help them with what they need.  But let us see what they will do”.

The floors above, stage by stage, present a new Horizon.  Each stairwell guarded carefully and hidden behind the most narrow of doors.  Only with the proper password and consent, may anyone ascend.

Above the floors which one may enter, is a building in the works.  No one is allowed past the ceiling of the top floor until the work is finished on the next.

No news of preparation comes from those who build.  No revealing of the grandeur they put in place is told or seen.  Yet as each floor was finished there were men prepared to climb.  So it will be until its completion.

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”

“Yes!”


God says, “Yes“.  And he has engraved that Holy Word in the Holy Blood of his Holy Son across all creation!

He says “yes” to our desire to live forever.  He says “yes” to everything that is righteous and good.

If we do not live, as if he has said “yes” to us then, by whatever measure we fall short, we call him a liar.  It is established that God cannot lie.  So then who are we to refuse his answer?

He says “yes“, and so there is sure joy toward the promise of eternity.  He says “yes“, and so we become a righteous people in His Holy Christ.

The first is to believe and be set free from all the things that bring failure and shame.  The second is to “become” and overcome sin and temptation.  The first gives us strength to honor his Holy Name and testify with great boldness, even in the face of hatred and ridicule; even in the face of wicked and unholy doubt. 

The second gives our testimony the strongest possible foundation.  This is the strength to stand with glory; that standing which causes men to wonder and marvel.  We become His “yes” before their very face

God has said “yes” in the very suffering and blood of His Holy Son.  He has said “yes” to the destruction of all who do not believe and remain in the filthy death of unbelief.   He has said “yes” to any man who desires righteousness from his Holy Hand, and looks for it earnestly.

How do we dare say no?  Let us combine our knowledge with faith, and rise up to give Him the glory that is rightfully His! 

Let us not be like those who fell, dead forever, in the desert!  Let us be as the example of Stephen, his holy and righteous servant!