Today is Blog Action Day. The topic of choice for this year is poverty. I want to approach it from a completely different viewpoint than most of the bloggers are. I want to look at the spiritual aspect of poverty.

And seeing the multitudes, [Jesus] went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:1-3 (NKJV)

Something that has become very evident to me over the past few years is just how self-centered I am. A lot of the time, I say selfish things as a joke, but I also realize that many people don’t get my sarcasm and my sense of humor.

I brushed on this topic some yesterday, but I find that as I compromise and swallow my pride, people tend to respect me more. It’s hard, but sometimes the very best thing we can do is apologize and admit we were wrong. These are terribly hard things to do, but I find the words of Jesus above to be true (big surprise).

Easy and right are not always the same.

Joel Wagner

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.