A spiritual response to poverty

Over the past 12 months, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and fires have taken a serious toll on lives and property, often exacerbating already difficult circumstances in people’s lives.

From Darfur to Haiti to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Gulf Coast of the United States, stark images of poverty have confronted us week after week on television and in newsmagazines. People who care about the welfare of others can’t help but be moved.

Yet even in the face of such widespread need, is it a foregone conclusion that poverty must be endemic to society? Is there no way to make a significant difference in the world?

And if we’re inclined to pray about such large issues, do our prayers ultimately matter?

I believe that prayer not only matters but that it’s essential. Providing a spiritual response to poverty is crucial to turning the tide. As well-intentioned and as important as the public and private programs of assistance are in meeting the immediate needs of people, the floodwaters of poverty continue to rise. How can we respond spiritually?

An example I know that shows how poverty was overcome in one family’s experience involved a woman in dire straits. She had been widowed and left on her own without any outside support to finish raising her two sons. She was also left with a burden of debt that she saw no possible way of reducing.

I know about this experience from an account in the Bible. Even though it was written many centuries ago, I find it completely relevant to the issues confronting people’s lives today.

In the Old Testament narrative, the widow’s situation appeared utterly hopeless. Yet at her lowest point, she sought help from a “man of God.” He was the prophet Elisha, a religious teacher.

The woman poured out her story to Elisha, and he then asked her, “What do you have in the house?” Nothing remained in her family’s house of any value at all, she informed Elisha, except one container of oil, which in that part of the world was probably olive oil.

It’s worth noting that Elisha first turned the woman’s thought to recognizing what she still had, as opposed to what she didn’t have. In effect, the prophet was directing her away from a totally impoverished state of thinking to one that could at least find something of value.

Elisha’s next words to the woman, now that she had acknowledged even a hint of good remaining in her experience, explained her own responsibility to do something with what she had.

To me, this indicates how vital it is to magnify even the smallest sign of good we discover in our lives, rather than diminish it. Elisha told the woman to go to her neighbors and borrow as many containers from them as she could manage to obtain. It didn’t matter if the vessels had only a little oil in them, a few drops, or were even completely empty.

This was going to be an opportunity to demonstrate the abundance of good that expresses the law of God, divine Love.

Elisha also told the woman that after she had collected the containers from her neighbors, she was to take the containers into her home and begin to pour out the oil into all the vessels.

Again, she had only one small pot of oil of her own, and she had collected a number of vessels, including empty ones. She could have argued that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Yet, as she poured out the oil she had, an extraordinary thing occurred. She found that the containers were filling up. She asked one of her sons to bring her one more vessel, but he told her that there were, in fact, none left. Every container was now completely full.

The Bible reports, “And the oil stayed.” Elisha then suggested that the woman should go and sell the valuable oil, pay her debts and live off the proceeds of what remained.

All of her family’s needs were met through the power of God. The burdens of poverty and hopelessness had been lifted, all in accordance with the law of God—the law of abundant good for every one of His children.

This same divine law is available to each of us today. In the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which explains how God’s laws are applied in our lives to practical effect through prayer, Mary Baker Eddy wrote of God as divine Love, omnipotent Life and pure Soul.

In our prayer, even if we’re far removed geographically from the difficulties in Darfur or Pakistan, we can nonetheless affirm that all true substance—the real substance of everyone’s life—is entirely spiritual, expressing the abundance of Love, the permanent vitality of Life, and the undiminished strength and beauty of Soul.

As our prayer affirms each individual’s continuous unity with God—and our own true nature as God’s perfect reflection—we will be bearing witness to unparalleled spiritual resources, which are accessible to everyone.

And as our thinking is thus spiritualized to a deeper understanding of those divine resources reflected by the men and women of God’s creating, so will our immediate experience be liberated from a false sense of impoverished living.

This is the natural outcome of knowing that God loves us and all of His children, and that God cares for every aspect of His creation, every moment and without fail.

In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy wrote of God’s provision: “Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul.”

Your compassionate prayer, from the Christian and spiritually scientific perspective that we’ve been considering, represents a kind of spiritual “care package” that reaches beyond geography, culture and nationalities.

Discovering and trusting the resources of Soul enables all our prayers to bless others, even as it uplifts our own thoughts and lives.

When we’re praying about poverty, whether it’s scarcity or indebtedness we may be confronting in our own lives or lack of resources in the larger life of humanity around the globe, our humble conviction and affirmation of people’s divine right to express the abundant substance of God—of Love, Life and Soul—provides a powerful agent for transformation.

The widow’s liberation from poverty in the Bible came about as Elisha lifted her outlook to a new view of substance. Similarly, our own prayer helps lead the way to a fresh view of substance in today’s world as well.

And even if only one life is lifted at a time—one consciousness at a time—the general acceptance of poverty as an entrenched and unavoidable aspect of human existence is being directly challenged. The floodwaters of poverty and despair start to recede.

And the spiritual force of prayer, based on God’s law, actually begins changing the way people think about their relationship to God and about the true meaning of spiritual substance in their lives.

That force for good—abundant good for all God’s children—is irresistible.

Bill Moody lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.

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