Giving of yourself in relationships

I was trawling for ideas for a blog post for today and found the start of this one in my drafts:

Love this verse: "For if you give, you will get! Your gift will return to you in full and overflowing measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use to give – large or small – will be used to measure what is given back to you."

Luke 6:38 TLB

I guess I've generally thought of it as a verse about financial matters. But apply it to relationships and communication and you open up a whole new world. The more you give of yourself to others, the more you receive in return. And the opposite is true too. The less of yourself you give to others, the less you receive from them. WOW.

I've seen this happen so many times. When I reveal something painful or difficult to another person, very often others share something about themselves in return, either then or at some later date. Actually it has happened with this blog and a little bit with Facebook too. People seem to appreciate a glimpse behind the "perfect" mask?

Of course it can backfire on you too, and I've had that happen. But if we all sit behind our little walls of defence taking no risks then no real connection will be made at all. That is how we have so many lonely people in our world, I guess. People are too scared to reveal their true selves, or even just a glimpse, just in case someone uses that to hurt them. By all means we need to be wise in what we share with whom, but I cannot let the risk of hurt stop me connecting with people altogether.

So the challenge to start the week? Find some way to give of yourself to someone else this week, in a deeper way than you have before and see what happens.