Beggar

What is it like to be a beggar? What is the point when one realizes that they are not able to meet their own needs, and any resources they once had are gone? Perhaps those resources were never adequate, but somehow that person managed to just “get by” on them. What does the first day someone goes out to beg look like? Do they wake up that morning and dread the coming hours ahead of them when they realize the dignity that makes them human will be taken away? As they walk to the place where they will begin to lose this dignity, does their posture speak of one defeated by the weight of knowing how people will jeer and look down on them? And when they get there, how long does it take for them to stretch out their hand, to try and meet the eyes of those who will do anything to avoid that intimate contact? And what does it feel like when one rejection after the other is received, and the desperation that brought them here is blended with the destruction of their humanity? The looks that they do receive are filled with pity at times, more often with distaste, and most of the people who walk by leave them wondering if they are in fact invisible. Does everyone else seem better than them, because they are in a posture of such defeat and dependence on those whom they ask from? And at the end of the day, do they leave with any trace of the image of God that He gave them?
I want to be a beggar. For too long I have tried to meet my own needs with resources I had, but Manila has stripped those away. So here I am, lying in a puddle of my own deficiencies, drowning in the shallowness of what I once thought was sufficient. I am learning (slowly because I am not very teachable) to ask God what He would have me do, say, or think, and asking Him what His will is throughout the day for me. Because I need Him, and I fall on my knees in a posture of defeat and dependence as a beggar knowing He is superior to me in every way. But here is the thing that separates a kingdom beggar from one I see all around me here. When I am on my knees Jesus does not reject me, he does not avoid eye contact, he does not look at me with distaste. Instead He lifts me up looking deeply into my eyes and restores my dignity, my humanity, the image of God in me. When I ask Him what His will is, He tells me. He shows me. He never rejects me. And when I fail to ask Him or fail to follow Him, He never withholds His love from me. Please pray that He will continue to make me a beggar for Him.