«And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others» (2 Corinthians 9:8).
In the country where I grew up, using disposable plates meant spending extra time in the kitchen to wash them afterward. But in some more developed countries, disposable plates are simply tossed away.
We have grown used to many things being tossed away easily, and there are things it isn’t even hard to replace nowadays. Sometimes it’s even easier to do that than to ask someone to fix them. We’ve grown used to applying that same mentality to people and projects, and even though we’ve already talked about lack of commitment, we can remember the importance of what Jesus taught us. It is something we should do every day, because it can also be forgotten every day.
Maybe you’ve lived a religion of prohibitions; a religion in which the commandments are seen as denials of freedom rather than statements of freedom (try to do that exercise and you’ll be surprised by the broad positive message in each commandment); a religion with an endless list of things that can’t be done; a religion where instead of repeating the golden rule the way Jesus said it, we say it in a negative way, «Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like them to do to you; a religion in which we sometimes get used to disposing of people because they don’t fulfill that list of «noes.
However, Jesus gave us a positive example, an attitude of abundance, not of stinginess, regarding how we are to treat others.
So today I invite you to find a positive way to say certain things we’re used to repeating in a negative way… to invest in more solid and durable things.
And I also encourage you to see the other side of the golden rule. In addition to treating others the way we want them to treat us, let’s be willing to receive special treatment only if we’re willing to return the favor. Not necessarily because we want to deny other people’s kindness and love, but because if we’re really sincere, we sometimes accept things in a selfish way and run the risk of using people for our own benefit.
Our way of turning something negative into something positive today can also be shown by changing our stingy attitude into one of abundance. That attitude of abundance is part of God’s character. Let’s ask for it because He will give it to us.
