Can good really make a difference?
A desire to make a difference is inherent in each one of us but individual efforts can feel inconsequential.
Bob Cummings’ Aug 17th article in the Lancing State Journal “You and heaven can make a difference” includes an example to remember when the suggestion comes that good deeds are just a “drop in the bucket.”
Here is video showing the difference one drop can make! Keep reading here for the beginning of Bob’s article then click the link to read it to the end.
Our hearts ache for all those affected by troubling occurrences of violence. What’s needed is more heaven on earth to displace what to some must seem hellish. You and I can make a difference.
At MSU’s annual Foglio Lecture on Spirituality and Medicine earlier this year, I was privileged to meet Father Jake Foglio, a Catholic priest who has served in Kalamazoo, Jackson, Flint, Fenton and East Lansing – and was a team chaplain for the MSU football team years ago. I found him extraordinarily humble and kind.
Meeting “Jake” reminded me of something author Bob Goff said at the Battle Creek Community Prayer Breakfast last year: “We want people to feel like they just met heaven when they meet us.” And I wondered what the world would be like if we were all a little more humble and kind.
While many think of heaven as a far-off, future place, heaven may be viewed as a state of thought experiencing spiritual harmony and bliss because governed by the divine Spirit – here and hereafter.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “…Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” (Luke 11:2) He also said, “…the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)
I ask myself, “Does divine goodness reign in my thinking and actions? Would people feel like they just met an individual expression of heaven if they met me?”
This needn’t feel futile or insignificant. Consider a test to measure the alkalinity of water in swimming pools. You fill a test tube with pool water and add drops of two agents, giving the water a purple tint. Then you add drops of a third agent, counting the drops. When the water turns clear again, the number of that last drop gives you the alkalinity reading.