Zero Sum Or Prodigious Blessings

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Life is about seeing blessings in all things,

Looking also down to see beauty.

Isaiah 53:12

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Luke 6:28

Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Words of Grace For Today

If life is a zero-sum ‘game’, then the goal is to get ahead by whatever means, destroying as many enemies and people who get in your way.

With the earth overburdened with nearly 9 billion people, we are pressing the limits of what the earth can sustain, with our ‘great’ life style, comforts, and luxuries. It is the generations old solution to compete for the ‘limited resources’, and to ‘take no prisoners’ along the way.

We humans thus reduce life to a zero-sum ‘game’, a project of limited resources which each person or family or nation needs to seek to gain for themselves before others do, or to take them from others if they have the resource you want.

It is hard to imagine in this zero sum ‘game’ that anyone will stop to bear the sins of the many and make intercession for the transgressors, or bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.

Since God did not create life to be a zero sum ‘game’, rather that life is abundant for all if all share what is available, it is obvious that we will bless those who curse us, and pray for our abusers and the transgressors.

Life is a project of being grateful.

God has provided plenty … for everyone,

including blessings.

Life is not sustained by things, consumables, resources, comforts, or possessing more than others, or enjoying luxuries.

Life is sustained in being God’s blessings for others.

That changes the colour of life from a zero sum ‘game’ to a ‘game’ of giving to others what they need in order to have an abundant life (which is not the same as a life of comfort or luxury).

We get to celebrate all God’s blessings for all people, even those who curse us for not playing their ‘game’.