Sharing is Losing

Romans 5:2
Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

Sharing is a losing situation is what I was taught today in a class about conflicts.  Upon first hearing the concept, I reviewed the possibility of this having some truth.  The instructor used the example of being siblings and being instructed by your parents regarding a new toy you had received that you needed to share it with your sibling.  So the mindset here is simple, you have something new and you want it to yourself first for a period of time. Perhaps you will be willing to share it after a certain amount of time, but to just start of sharing it seems a bit much. So when this person tries to do like mom and dad said to do they have to give up something and they are losing out on the full potential of having that toy all to themselves.  Further more emotions take over and now they are angry at the person they have to share with and this may cause an issue between them.

While we were discussing different outcomes of conflict today in class and as the teacher was describing sharing as a lose/lose situation, I began to accept her take on this.  Growing up as an only child, sharing was not in my vocabulary.  Things were mine, all mine and the thought never crossed my mind that someone else might possibly touch my things.  Even when I had friends over, I was in charge and decided who could play with what. (yep I have been boss material since the age of 5)

When we are brought up in the environment of always having to share because it’s the right thing to do and our parents are just repeatedly telling us over and over again that we MUST share, we begin to accept it as part of life and for some this may be the beginning stages of jealousy or grudge holding.  Sharing was described as a lose/lose situation because both persons involved lose something.  The person who originally was given the toy has to give up their rights to it causing them to have negative feelings for the other person.  Meanwhile the person who is being shared with can see clearly by the body language of the other they are not and may begin to feel the offense causing friction to arise.

Being “forced” into sharing could very well lead to a lose/lose situation in most cases and really seems to be a worldly way of doing things.  Perhaps instead of teaching our children that they HAVE to share, what if we instilled values in them that makes them WANT to share instead?  As I pondered this I looked up “sharing” in the Bible and found a few verses.  One said if you eat quickly and do not share, some will go hungry (1 Corinthians 11:21), Philippians 3:10 states that we share in the death of Jesus and yet other verses talk about sharing God’s glory.  This is the kind of sharing we need to teach. Non-self-centered, wanting to share moments.

What is the first thing we want to do after accepting Jesus into our hearts?  We want to share the Good News to everyone we see.  This is the attitude we need to grab hold of and teach to our children.  We need to make it more of a kindness thing to share than a necessity in  manners.  We need to instill a value of making others happy into our children rather than teaching them that giving something up to others out of discipline or correction.  I am not sure how this can be accomplished but it sure gives us something to think about. Just thought I would “share” this with you so that you may be inspired to change your concept of sharing in your own lives.  Share your ideas on this one!