Through his poverty

It is hard to imagine that the son of a slave would be offered a job at $100,000 a year. 

It is even more incredible that the same man would turn down the offer. But that is exactly what George Washington Carver did! It was Thomas Edison that made the offer. When he turned it down, then Henry Ford also tried to persuade Carver to come to work for the Ford Motor Company. 

But Carver was unimpressed with the offer of money and prestige. He chose rather to live in the south, living in relative poverty, wearing the same suit for forty years. He had given up a promising position at Iowa State University in order to work for Booker T. Washington in his struggling institute. 

His friends argued that he could help his people if he had all that money. Carver’s reply was, “If I had all that money I might forget about my people.” On his tombstone are carved the following words: “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”

There is another who gave up more in order to bless the world. That person was Jesus Christ. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thought He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich,” (II Corinthians 8:9)