Understanding the Poverty Chain
Years ago I visited a beautiful nation in Africa to teach about financial freedom. These brave people were in the process of recovering from some truly horrific circumstances, and they’d found themselves caught in a system of poverty.
A system of poverty is like a set of gears that fit together and “work” people deeper and deeper into a financial trap. These “gears” are circumstances and financial elements designed by the enemy to destroy. A system of poverty is the enemy’s specific and direct attack against us.
Some of these situations are circumstantial (disasters, catastrophes, etc.) while others are systematically designed to work against us (like the credit system). Economies devised to exploit people, animals, and land are tragic but common around the world.
A system of poverty becomes especially potent when it combines with two other elements:
An attitude or mindset of poverty
Belief in what the enemy is saying about who we are and what we can do
An Attitude of Poverty
An attitude or mindset of poverty is often called a poverty spirit, and it’s like a pair of glasses we use to view the world around us. If I am “wearing” an attitude of lack or victimization, I will see everything around me through the lens of lack and victimization.
A spirit of poverty is a beggary attitude.
The Enemy’s Broadcast
We cannot see radio waves physically, but we know they’re present because we can listen to them if we have a receiver: a radio.
The same works in the spirit. Like a radio station, the enemy constantly broadcasts his message into the airwaves around us. He wants to see us fail, and this is the message he pumps out into the air: “There isn’t enough. It will never work. You’re a fool. You’re weak. You’re ruined. You’re too stigmatized to ever move ahead.”
What is the “radio” that enables us to pick up this message? Our attitude. Imagine what happens when a person with an attitude of victimization tunes in to the enemy’s broadcast and starts listening to a voice that repeatedly tells them, “It’s never going to work. You’re going to fail. You’re so tired you might as well just surrender. Just give up.”
An attitude of poverty and the enemy’s broadcast work together to give poverty a stronger foothold in our lives. The enemy also moves directly against us by designing systems meant to drag us down and keep us trapped.
How the Poverty Chain Works
Prosperous Soul exists to throw a rope to people who have found themselves trapped in those three elements: poverty systems they accept and begin to become a part of, attitudes or mindsets of poverty, and the constant demonic broadcast that tries to tear people down.
It isn’t enough just to say, “Hey, you need to change your attitude about life and money.” A change in attitude is obviously very important, but that attitude doesn’t work alone—it is just one link on a chain.
We don’t have to listen to the voice that wants us to fail. We can tune out of the enemy’s broadcast and tune in to the virtues of the gospel of peace. The Bible has our answers; as we adjust our attitudes, we can choose to listen to the virtues and announcements of God instead of the enemy.
Then, as Prosperous Souls, we can also work against systems of poverty. This often looks like budgeting, learning how to get out of debt, and all the other practical steps we can take with money as we lift up our heads and begin to happen to life instead of the other way around.
Change the Station
Here’s an important, practical thing you can do to begin to adjust your financial situation.
Consider your finances and how you think/feel about them. Where in your financial life are you listening to the enemy’s voice? Pinpoint those areas and choose to listen to the truth of God instead.
For more information on this topic, check out Dawna De Silva’s book Shifting Atmospheres.