Out of the Ashes

He lifts the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from a garbage heap.” Psalm 113:7

I love Rags to Riches stories. My dad loved to root for the underdog. Stories of the hopeless rising up out of their despair and into a renewed life inspire us all. It may be a story like Abraham Lincoln, rising from the humble beginnings of a log cabin, reading book after book by the faint flame of the fireplace, ascending to arguably the greatest Presidency of our nation. I love to watch unheralded sport figures, perhaps a quarterback picked far down in the draft, going on to Super Bowl achievements.


A young woman ended her unhappy marriage in 1993, moved back to her native country and struggled to raise her baby daughter on welfare equal to a mere hundred dollars a week. Living in a mice-infested apartment, she fought hard against the poverty and depression that threatened to take over her life.

That winter she spent hours in a café, drinking coffee and working on an idea she had for a book. With no heat in her apartment, the table was a place to warm herself and her baby sleeping in a stroller. Taking many months, she completed the work, which was rejected by a dozen publishers. Finally, one publisher agreed to publish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and three years later Joanne Kathleen Rowling was the highest earning woman in the entire United Kingdom.

Yes, we love rags-to-riches stories. And it should not matter a bit if we like or do not like her books; her journey from is a vivid picture of what God means by saying He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage heap. In fact, this Psalm goes on to say that God seats them with influential people!

Let that picture of a woman down on her luck, paying rent for a flat without heat, raising a baby child alone touch your emotions. Imagine your darkest time. Perhaps you have never been so low as to describe any point of your life as living on a garbage heap, but there are many who do. And God knows who they are. He sees those who struggle to make ends meet and jobs barely above minimum wage with no opportunity for advancement.

God also sees those who look askance at those who are on the “government dole.” My own family had to rely on food stamps for nearly a year a while back. Can you imagine how those who are forced to accept help from various charities and programs feel when they hear rhetoric about laziness, drug tests and illegal aliens? For many, their only crime is being caught in the middle of a violent confluence of a poor economy and perhaps a mate that has left them high and dry.

I am so glad that, as a follower of Jesus, I know a God who sees the desperation and does not add to it with judgmental epithets. I think the Christ who suffered horribly on Calvary would cringe at the sound bites from some corners that sneer at the poor and those at risk.

If Rowlings’ story inspires you, add this: God is working with you, dear brother or sister. I do not know the extent or form of Rowlings’ faith, but adding this encouragement from God should help us rise and keep taking each step forward as God moves us from the moments that stink to a life renewed and refreshed in Him.

I write this on Good Friday. This day we remember Jesus’ sacrifice for the entire human race. Our relationship with God turned completely around at that moment in history. To describe our plight as a garbage heap might actually be short of the full truth. But Jesus, in His life stepped into the dusty lives of “sinners” that the religious elite ignored. In His death He allowed Himself to experience the full bore of mankind’s ugliness on the cross. And doing so, humbling Himself even to death, He raised us up from the lowest place to become His own; brothers and sisters to the Son of God.

All of this means, of course, we take on the view of the head of our wonderful family, Father God. If He is directly involved in raising the poor from their dust and dung, then as His representatives, we should act on His behalf. As for me, any call for a “Biblical” mandate better strongly insist on care for the poor and disenfranchised. If we do not, we have missed much of the point of this Good Friday.