Physical poverty is rooted in a mindset of poverty, a set of ideas held corporately that produce certain behaviors. These behaviors can be institutionalized into the laws and structures of society. The consequence of these behaviors and structures is poverty.
Rwanda's President Paul Kagame has demonstrated the example of a hard-working man, standing against corruption, and planning ahead with a visionary attitude of what could be if we work at it with all our effort. These three behavioral qualities are new for Rwandan leaders.
Previous leaders of Rwanda either had the fatalistic attitude that says "we are poor, we will always be poor, and there is nothing we can do about it" or the blame-casting atttitude that says "we are poor because others made us poor... they are going to have to solve our problem...we cannot solve our problems."
The majority of Rwandans at the moment still have this attitude, especially about themselves. Some people in the west still have this attitude, but it's the minority, not the majority.
Miller writes that these two types of thinking are rooted in man's sin and rebellion against his Creator, who created a world of abundance and blessing. Man's alienation from God and His principles produces a mindset of poverty that further poisons the mind, spirit and heart. This poverty mentality enslaves people, leaving them unable to even imagine a way of escaping. Does God want us to live in poverty?
Poverty is both oppressing and enslaving. There is no doubt about that fact. Many of the people I employ at Cards from Africa come from rural communities. All of them have neighbors or relatives who have died because of sickness - often a sickness that could have been prevented by the use of a mosquito net, or the low cost of some medicine, or a better diet, etc. Satan comes to lie, steal and destroy, but Jesus comes to bring life, and life in abundance. Being without the resources that we need to sustain life is not how God intended us to live. He created the earth with an abundance of resources for all people.
The Bible is very clear that being poor is not in itself a sin, that God has special concern for the poor, and that being rich is not necessarily a sign of God's spiritual favor (despite what many of the 'prosperity preachers' say).
Jesus warned repeatedly about the spiritual dangers of wealth. Yet God did not create poverty; man did. The problem is usually rooted in mindsets that stop and resist development. The two attitudes mentioned above come from Satan, the 'father of all lies'.
Jesus quoted from Isaiah when he started his public ministry, by saying "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19).
