99 SHARING
99 SHARING
We all want to share with others and we want them to share with us. Every day strangers will start a conversation with you or you will start one with them. A smile or a simple ‘hello’, just to have them acknowledge us and be acknowledged back means that they have accepted us and we them.
Our emotional needs require sharing and acceptance; our physically handicapped feel this lack every day. People are uncomfortable around them because they don’t know how to relate to them so they ignore them and hope that they will go away. To a handicapped person, their handicap is real and a part of them; by accepting this fact and talking about it, we accept them as they are and who they are.
We move through society looking for those, that we think are worthy, to accept us into their world. Acceptance and rejection do not have to be verbalized to be known; it can be felt and seen by our actions and attitude.
We share a small detail about our self with a stranger and the response dictates weather we think we are accepted or rejected. If we are accepted, we keep sharing and receiving as long as there is a positive, pleasant feeling about it. If it continues very long, we have a friend, lover, buddy, wife or whatever.
If we are rejected, we pull back and withdraw our feelings until that person is and remains a stranger.
We seek out and try to befriend those that we can gain from or those that we want to emulate. We wish to use our friendships to better our position in life so we try sharing with the wealthy, beautiful or charismatic in the hopes that they will accept us and share back so that we can get close to them and become one of their circle of followers.
We reject or string along for our pride those we think unworthy of our attention and friendship, hoping to do better or to impress the ‘more worthy’ crowd.
As we get more distant from each other, we find less and less sharing and more and more using. Women will give sex for affection, men will give money for things that impress others, kids become proud and arrogant because parents want to share their kids’ worlds but not give them any of their own and the individual is told that he is more important than the masses for others to gain from him.
Jesus shared all of Himself with everyone that wanted Him to so that He could become our friend; His personality, time, knowledge, power and parentage in the hopes that we would accept Him and share our lives with Him; our personalities, time, knowledge, strength and His parentage. Those of us that accepted became His friends and those of us that rejected Him went away from Him.
Sharing is a big part of intimacy; not just talking but listening and feeling the emotions of the other. Giving up our comfort zone to get personally involved with the emotions and feelings of others; understanding where they are and what they are going through and willing to pay the cost of sharing their world for their benefit; no matter what their social status is.
Give yourself away and share others lives; you might be pleasantly surprised.
