Proverbs 13:23 · World English Bible
Proverbs 13:23 Meaning An Abundance of Food Is in Poor
An abundance of food is in poor people’s fields, but injustice sweeps it away.
What does Proverbs 13:23 mean?
A mind that seems to have little still holds abundance when it tends the ground it has, for what feeds it is not circumstance but the willingness to receive love where it stands. The plainest life becomes rich the moment it is looked at by a gentler teacher.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 13:23 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
A mind that seems to have little still holds abundance when it tends the ground it has, for what feeds it is not circumstance but the willingness to receive love where it stands. The plainest life becomes rich the moment it is looked at by a gentler teacher.
What wastes that plenty is not lack but the ego's refusal to choose rightly, the failure to discern which teacher to hear. Nothing is lost for want of having; it is lost only when the mind will not see what is already given.
Field of the poor: the plain and unregarded ground of a mind that seems to have little, yet yields abundance the moment love is allowed to tend it
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Live Proverbs 13:23 today
- Do one ordinary task today, dishes, folding, the walk to the car, without turning on anything to escape it. The ground you are on is already enough to stand in.
- Tell one person something you like about the life you actually have, not the one you are waiting for. Saying it out loud makes it visible to you too.
- In the grocery line or stuck in traffic, catch yourself calling the moment wasted. Then let it be a few quiet minutes you were handed rather than minutes taken from you.
What is already in front of me that I have been calling not enough?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching
The one who knows they have enough is already rich. Nothing was added; the seeing changed.
Zen
Before enlightenment, carry water and chop wood. After enlightenment, carry water and chop wood. The plain work was never the problem, only the eyes brought to it.
Stoicism · Seneca
It is not the small portion that makes a person poor but the appetite for more. Poverty is a judgment about the table, not what is on it.
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