1763) A few years ago, my husband and I visited the Dominican Republic. It was a beautiful place with turquoise water, plentiful fruit and amazing beaches.

As we have done on other trips, we took opportunities to leave the comfortable resort to go and really see the country and its people. On these trips, we saw so much poverty. Many houses weren’t more than what looks like storage sheds to us.

Electricity was only available in people’s houses for three hours a day. The houses were usually made of metal so they were very hot. We toured a school that housed students in three shifts a day.

Dogs are not catered to so we saw many of them walking around with their ribs showing. Though the people were friendly and had positive outlooks on life, most lived in great poverty.

Besides the country and its people, I described above, there is another way to experience poverty. Galatians 6:4-5 tells us when we compare our lives with those of others, it is a form of poverty. Why? Because we are depleting our energy, love, thoughts and neglecting what we should have been doing instead.

Not all poverty is a choice, but the poverty of comparison is.