My parents were ever striving to improve their socio-economic standing.
As children of the Great Depression, their youthful dreams were dreams of affluence and of being able to afford denied luxuries.
For them, having an orange or a banana to eat was an exceptional treat. (For me, they were unwelcome additions to the school sack lunch that were often thrown away.)
They used to make a list every New Year’s of the material things they wanted to buy each year.
Then they bought those things, often on credit.
And they often paid top dollar to be one of the first people on the block to have a color TV or a microwave.
Striving for affluence was therefore an unspoken mandate that our mainline Presbyterianism never challenged or questioned.
There was a definite downside.
My parents both worked so we could have more money and buy more things.
They never comprehended the searing pain of being alone so often, of yearning for presence and protection and not having it, of wanting someone to disclose my heart to but having those moments missed by the time they got home.
Strangely enough, I would have gladly traded a lot of affluence to have them around more.
Less gifts of things, and many more hugs, would have done me a lot of good as a boy.
But the unspoken mandate was strong.
To have a larger house, several cars, a well-maintained yard and stylish home decor–to enjoy the well-earned good life–was a compulsion.
Little did they understand the child sacrifice that the god of affluence, greed, and ceaseless striving would require of our family.
In the end, it was empty–especially for me.
The Upside
Yet there was a very good side to my parents’ Middle Class American values.
My dad taught me the values of hard work, of persevering, of doing a quality job, of showing up on time and giving an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage.
We worked together on many home projects and he modeled what it looked like.
I grew to love working hard, to value completing projects, and to know the satisfaction of persevering until the job was done.
I learned to be a productive worker, to show up on time, and to be reliable–just like him.
He and my mom were willing to put out a great deal of money to insure that I got the best education and received many other kinds of enriching life experiences.
It is why many Americans succeed, invent things, found companies, and astound the world with the hours we put into our jobs.
My Own Journey
Fast forward to recent years of financial hardship and diminished affluence in my own life.
In these years of striving for employment but not finding much financial return, a personal Great Depression has gripped my soul.
It’s as if I have been tried by the court of Middle Class success, and found wanting.
Despite many efforts and initiatives, I have not pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.
My wife isn’t working so we can afford more, but so we can stay afloat–breaking the Law of Male Providing and the Law of Middle Class financial sufficiency.
It’s been a torment to my heart–but one in which the root cause was hidden from my eyes.
The Eye-Opening Season
About two weeks ago, God opened my eyes.
He showed me I have a deeply embedded horror of poverty, a horror passed down through the generations from my middle class and farming forbears.
To be in poverty, by these Middle Class values, is to be lazy, incompetent, and failing.
It is a shameful condition and always blameworthy.
And I have not been able to work my way out of this degrading status–however much I tried.
So I asked a question: How does God feel about the poor, about those in poverty?
Funny enough, He loves them!
He has a special place in His heart for them and extends a special measure of favor to them.
In a word, “Blessed are the poor…”. (Matt. 5)
In another, “Has not God chosen the poor to be rich in faith and heirs of His eternal kingdom…” (James 2)
He was not putting me into a shameful status, denying my desperate cries for help, and abandoning me to it.
In retrospect, He has been seeking to break the reign of unbiblical Middle Class values in my heart in order to set me free from their tyranny–because He loves me so much.
In His hands poverty was not a horror to be escaped, but a precursor to an encounter with His love that might otherwise have been missed.
He doesn’t need me to be a successful member of the American Middle Class to love me, and He will up His love rather than withdraw His love in the presence of poverty.
It’s a truth that could set many of us free.
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