Cure to Poverty

“The poor you will always have with you” - Matt 26:11, Mark 14:7

Everytime I hear about poverty eradication, I just marvel, poverty will never be eradicated! It can be reduced, but total annihilation is a pie in the sky.

Poverty is so bothersome, I’ve had a bite of it, and it’s certainly not desirable. We all have a general idea of the symptoms of poverty, but I believe a general picture of poverty is not having ones needs met, not wants, needs. Poverty is like a disease, only it makes you susceptible to many diseases. Poverty is like AIDS, it weakens your ability to respond to many of the challenges that life throws. Poverty itself might not kill, but the result of being poor can be devastating.

In my search about 10yrs ago, I stumbled on the cure for poverty, and just recently I came to understand the cause of poverty. It is my sincere desire, that someone will read this short piece, and drag him/herself out of the dredges
The root cause of being poor, is an acronym thats derived from the word poor itself. POOR - Passing Over Opportunities Repeatedly. A man is poor not because of his background, not because of a deformity, not because of where he lives, grew up or his family. A man or woman is poor because he or she passes over opportunities repeatedly.

Opportunities come to us all, we all get chances, what however r determines whether our opportunity will cascade into a defining moment for us, is whether we utilize them or not. A poor man does not see opportunities when they come, or he sees them, but does not count them as such. Have you ever tried hard to convince a dear friend about a good idea that you believe would be useful to him, and he couldn’t just see it? Have you ever tried to talk to a colleague about an opportunity you stumbled on and rather than seeing the opportunity he/she immediately sees a problem? The ultimately poor man or woman, is the one that has gone through life passing over opportunities repeatedly. A few opportunities passed do not make a man poor, but when the habit is formed, he is stuck, and cannot even see a way out.

There were many young men in the same bus that the owner of ABC transport boarded, that inspired him to start a better one. While most people complained about the problem, he saw an opportunity to do things better. There were many whiz kids in the year that Bill Gates brokered a deal on Dos, it’s not about strength, wisdom, skill or speed. It’s the ability to spot the chance at the time it comes, it’s the ability to see and not pass over opportunities repeatedly.

If this is the cause of poverty, what then is it’s cure? I used to think that the cure to poverty was to share the money equally. But I discovered that a poor man is not poor because he doesn’t have money. Poverty is first in the mind. If we share all the money in the world, everybody will revert to where he deserves to be in a maximum of 3 months. Is it to supply the poor with daily stipends, I figured then they will forever be poor. Our governments does a lot to erradicate or placate the effects of poverty, can poverty be eradicated or reduced? How?
I found the how in a profound statement made in the holy creed.

Is 61: 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

The cure to brokenness is binding, the cure to captivity is freedom, the cure to imprisonment is release, and the cure to poverty is good news. Doesn’t that sound funny? That the solution to poverty is good information? If that sounds strange to you, go on a fact finding mission, and you will discover that it is information that differentiates the rich and the poor. A rich man buys a share at N3:00 because he knows that it will rise, a poor man buys it at N50 because that’s when he hears that the price has been rising. A poorer man doesn’t even get involved, and says when it becomes N100 - “And I knew when it was N3 oh, if only I had bought”.

The cure to poverty is good news. Not bad news, good news. It’s information, good information. To migrate from poverty to wealth. Feed on good information, know who you can be, see the opportunities around you, know that nothing is impossible to one that believes, and know that whatever you want to do is achievable. Know that you are just one decision away from your next breakthrough. Know that you can be all you dream to be. Feed on good information, and watch yourself gradually transform.