What are you scattering?

If only you could see him when I get home.  He twirls, jumps, sings, bounces, and wags that tail like there's no tomorrow.  I can barely scoop up his wriggling, four-pound body into my arms for fear he will twist away in a fur ball frenzy of glee.   I've always heard about the unconditional love of a dog, but being on the receiving end of that adoration washes over me like a warm ray of sunshine over and over again.  Talk about an endorphin hit--It's positively sublime!

Rico scatters a divine mixture of joy and gratitude and pure delight just to see me.  This made me wonder:  Do I scatter these things?  How do people respond when they see me?  [Okay, side note, if anyone responds like Rico when I walk into a room, well, we will have that person committed immediately.  Plus I probably couldn't pick them up anyway.] 

But you understand what I'm saying.
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God's Word says that we are light.  Jesus was THE Light...but we are to be mini lights.  Am I? 

I came across an interesting saying this morning:  "There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more..." (Prov. 11:24).  Well, that doesn't really make sense.  I mean if I am scattering what I have, am I not losing what I have at the same time? 

​Not in God's economy.  

Whether it is my riches, my possessions, my love, my laughter, my joy, you name it, there is this divine law of increasing returns.  We just have to make it a habit of giving and investing and pouring out, casting as far as we possibly can. 

​The great news is that we can have fun doing it, just like Rico.  

Can we take this thought one step further?  What I'm scattering does indeed matter to me, but it's not exclusively for me or my personal benefit alone.  In other words, I don't scatter just to receive. 

It always comes down to helping and loving our neighbor.  We live in a world that is riddled with bad news, scary reports, negative thoughts, and hurting people hurting other people.   

Let's be more aware of what we are throwing into the mix.   What a blessed realization that we will never run out of scattering love and light.

What are you scattering?  What can you do today to extend a smile, a hand, a kind and gentle response?  Whom can you help?  Whom can you encourage?  How can you be love in word and action?  How will you be light as both a noun and as a verb?

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May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
--Paul and Silvanus and Timothy in 1 Thes. 3:12--