“My Dad said you came from the wrong side of the tracks.” Years later, he answered the question I never asked, never considered asking. I had wondered why my best friend from First Grade kept running away from me at recess in Second Grade. He wouldn't play with me any more. I never knew why. I didn't know I was poor or that it made me different. All I wanted to do was play with the boy who used to be my friend.

A wound can be just a wound; smooth skin parted; a bleeding crease that becomes a scar. Or it can be a furrow in fertile soil for Kingdom seed. For me, it's been both.

I've heard it said that Jesus has a preference for the poor. My own opinion is that He loves all equally, but spends His time where He's most wanted. The poor and oppressed know they have need, and are more prone to welcome help. The comfortable often forget. Though I'm blessed in many ways, I can not forget being lonely and rejected. And that, too, has become a blessing. I need and welcome Him.

What, then, is God's blessing? Is it being comfortable in life, an absence of need? Or is God's blessing a profound awareness of need? If “blessing” removes a sense of absolute dependence on God, is it blessing at all?

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.'' He also said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” It seems that need is the cost of the ticket, the preliminary requirement for the flight to another Kingdom. It doesn't guarantee permission for the flight, but it's the first step of the journey. Changing the metaphor, it's the good soil. From here, the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom, can take root.

What if being rejected by my friend's father were a gift from God? Would I have hungered for real acceptance if I hadn't experienced being innately inadequate? What if my deepest pain were intended to be I my greatest gain? And if my preconception about God's blessing is not accurate, what else can be called into question?

And what if our weakness were His strength? What if the servant were counted greater than the gifted leader? What if our treatment of the “least of these,” the most unimportant, were the most important to Him? What if dying to self were the prerequisite for being alive to Him? And what if being alive to Him, and following Him with abandon opened the abundant life to us, the life overflowing with everything that most satisfies?

What if Jesus meant all the things He said Himself and through His servants? And what if we based our lives on His words instead of our desires; and built our churches on His principles instead of our doctrines? What if we quit “seasoning” the Gospel with our perspectives, thinking we make it more palatable and simply presented God's message as accurately as possible?

I believe we'd be the Church; the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. No longer would we be scorned for being self-seeking; we would be persecuted for being God-seeking. And the Word of God would be living and active in our midst; no longer anemic, seemingly without power because it was dependent on our power of presentation instead of His power. I believe.