A Clear Path

In the book Switch, Dan & Chip Heath share an experiment demonstrating the significance of a clear path for shaping human behavior. After surveying a dorm of about one hundred people, they discovered those who were generous and those who were stingy. From there, they sent half the group a letter asking them to donate food at the student center that week. To the other half of the dorm, they sent a letter asking for a can of beans, included a map to the student center, and asked them to consider when a convenient time in their schedule would be to drop off that can of beans. Group one had only 8% of generous people donate and 0% of stingy people. Group two, with the clear path, had 42% of generous people donate and 25% of the stingy people. A clear path matters.

Jesus shows us a clear path for human living teaching us to look for God’s kingdom, build community, and help healing happen.

LOOK FOR GOD’S KINGDOM

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:23)

The word repent here is seeing a new way to live and acting upon it. Jesus challenges our intuition and emotions, teaching us to find life in forgiveness not judgment, love of neighbor and enemy, and mindfulness not worry. Each of these requires us to train the way we think and see.

Allowing emotions to define how we think and act can be easy. The challenge is that while our emotions are always real they are not always true. In the moment we might feel like our spouse, sibling, boss, or friend always responds a certain way but always is an overstatement. One of the ways for us to train ourselves to see God’s kingdom is to ask ourselves, What am I feeling? What might I be oversating? What are my assumptions? What else is shaping my feeling? How might God be at work? Each of these questions allows us to see more clearly.

Build Inclusive Community

Jesus calls disciples to build a community of all people that serves all people. Jesus is very intentional about building communities of all people by seeking people of all walks of life out and engaging them with kindness. This teaches us to adopt a community-building mindset instead of a look-out-for-me mindset. Just as the students were more likely to donate food if they considered when in their weeks it would be convenient, we will be more likely to connect with others if we give some thought to who and when. Consider who you might gab coffee with in your neighborhood, school, or workplace, and then find a convenient time for both of you. You will be glad you did because strong relationships are the biggest determiner of human well being.

Help Healing Happen

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:23)

Jesus shows that God is about healing humanity and humanity is meant to bring healing too. There are many ways to give yourself to this good work–professions, volunteering, and caring for others. One timely choice is to focus on building and supporting unity through a common identity versus a common enemy. As we can see in our political parties, having a common enemy can be very unifying and motivating. The problem is that we become enemies to one another, and division, not healing, grows. The beauty of what civic leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr accomplished was that they refused to motivate by creating common enemies and instead cultivated our common identity.

We will flourish as humans when we look for God’s Kingdom, build community, and help healing happen.