Spiritual Advantages of Poverty

Why would God single out the poor for special attention over any other group? I used to wonder. What makes the poor deserving of God's concern? I received help on this issue from a writer named Monika Hellwig, who lists the following "advantages" to being poor:

The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another.
The poor rest their security not on things but on people.
The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy.
The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience.
The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
When the poor have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or scolding.
The poor can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

Source: Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Zondervan, 2001, p. 115); submitted by David Bartlett, Rochester, Minnesota.

(Quoted in Leadership Today email on 10/09/07)