The Poor in America

 Many of you know that this week I have been away raising money for Compassion International. As I was doing this I was thinking allot about the great country we live in. The fact that I took a shower this morning, had a Dr. Pepper, and will eat a meal out here in a bit. We are blessed in allot of ways, but at times I ask if we are really the poor ones?

Talking about how a filter could help up to 60 people in an area, this is because they share. Do we even know our neighbors? I spent some time asking God are we just being fooled from the American dream? The fact that people are so selfish to help with their own issues they go shopping, drinking, eating, or whatever else.

Could it be that the rich are poor and the poor are rich? Lets look at it from a realistic stand point. Here in America we have the highest suicide rate then any other country in the world. Why is that? I believe in mental illness, but I also know most of the time it has to do with losing something.

So here is what I started to see as I was thinking, we do live in poverty in America. It's a little different and money cant solve the problem here. This type of poverty is spiritual and very complex and is controlled by each individual.

The poverty is called "Fakeness" we can not let anyone know we have problems because of how it will look. We MUST wear the new clothes and drive the cars to make us feel better. We spend money on bottle water and refuse to drink it out of the tap. Size is what matters and you will see people trying their best to look a certain way.

We will kick our kids out of the house because of disrespect. A young man who is fatherless and does not have a clue of how to be a man will be called names such as fag, queer, gay, or whatever else. A mother will harm their own child for a drug or a drink. You drive by homes and all you see is happiness, when in all reality noone is happy.

The part that gets me the most is that we will have this going on and then come to church and raise your hands at the right time and on que. Then when a teenager stops going to church we will call them "slackers" or say they are falling away from God (like that is even possible).

What is the cure for all of this, simple it's the blood of Christ. You see I believe more and more that God didn't send his son to get our morals together. But that our morals would come together out of worship for him.

Our Church has been telling their stories for a while. At first I was not a big fan of it because they go like this.... "I was so high and drunk and my life was a disaster...Jesus came and now everything is good" What a lie that is. But it has been different for us, it has been a story followed with I am STILL struggling. HOW beautiful is that to understand that the love of Christ is not based off of how Good you are but that he loves you in the middle of the struggle.

The church should be the biggest recovery group in America. We're all in recovery and we are in need of the love of Christ.