Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:38 (NIV)
The problem with physical reality is that at a superficial glance, we all look disconnected from one another. It’s like we can breeze past one another at the supermarket or on the freeway with zero effect.
Princeton University began a project in 1998 that hypothesised the possibility that humans have some influence on one another as a collective. It is called the ‘Global Consciousness Project’ and in short they discovered that electromagnetic devices could detect human awareness and in turn be altered by them. They rolled out some 37 of these devices (which were essentially random number generators) across the globe and the data was fed back to a central server at Princeton. They discovered that there was lots of evidence from the devices (referred to as “EGG’s”) on major worldwide events, such as the 9/11 terrorist bombings, earthquakes and other such major events.
In Geneva, Switzerland, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider have discovered by speeding up particles in the 27km (17mi) tunnel and firing them at one another, the theory dubbed the “God Particle”. This indicates that there’s a framework underlying all we physically see that holds everything together.
It’s no wonder that Jesus says that we should love our neighbour as ourselves and that you should do to others as you would have them do to you. Or that He uses the picture of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and the parable of the sheep and goats (the least of these) in Matthew 25.
Are you using a measure of fear or faith in your encounters with other people? Is it judgment or compassion that permeates your first impression with strangers? When you witness someone struggling or in pain, do you see an opportunity to help or an opportunity to walk away?
The measure we use is the measure that comes back to us, which means we’re all in this together.
Don’t sit on the sidelines… join in!
