If I had my choice of those, which would I choose to be?

Well, a panting hart sounds desperate and very aware of his need. But I really don’t want to be an overweight porker.

However, when I look at myself spiritually, at times it seems I’m content to be lazy and self-indulgent with little self-discipline and purpose.

Even so, over the last year or so I’ve become more and more keenly aware of my own need. And my sense of desperation has gradually been ratcheting upward. I believe that to be a good thing…if it drives me to pant after the Living Water.

But now I’ve kinda strayed from the verse that brought this post title to my mind:

“Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich” (6).

If I had those two choices alone, for which would I opt?

May I value uprightness so much that I would take poverty as a price for it.

May I fear and despise unrighteousness so much that I would refuse wealth if the two be linked.

The fat pig is a picture of material wealth; the panting hart, of indigence.

from Proverbx 28:8