Blessed are the poor in spirit

This always seemed like a misnomer to me, but I think I now understand what being poor in spirit literally translates to. I realize that in some figurative sense it means to be humble, but here’s what I found: the word “poor” can be defined as “having little or no means to support oneself.”  Those who are poor in spirit have realized that trying to sustain their own spirit is futile; their spirit is sustained by God.  We often try to sustain it ourselves by doing good deeds or by working to gain success.  But we need to embrace the fact that we have no means to support our spirit.  We must trust God to feed our spirits and sustain us, and since we know we are relying on Him, He gets the glory and praise as well.