Significance

Significance

What makes something significant or of importance to us? It seems that whether its clothes, music or people, what makes things significant is how we connect with them. Clothes may be comfortable or make us look thinner, music connects to our emotions or relates to our life, but people, well this is where I think we need to be careful.





I find the parable Jesus told about the Good Samaritan to be very revealing to our nature as human beings. Here was a person who chose to take care of not only a stranger but the context is also of someone to whom there were strong social prejudices against. Yet in the story this Samaritan treated the stranger with extreme kindness, with a significant cost to himself.
It may surprise you but some people when asked if both your favorite pet and a stranger were drowning and you could only rescue one, which would you save? Surprisingly some have said they would save their pets above the stranger. Now put in that actual situation I pray that a deeper reason would prevail, but it is alarming to think to some it might not.

It seems to me we may need to rethink what we hold important when it comes to people. Do we think people are a comodity and important because of how they affect us? Like clothes, music or food? Or is it because of their importance to God? If our measure is solely about us, then we too will rescue our favorite pet over a human stranger, but if "man" was truly created in the image of God, then people are of value not because of OUR relationship to them, but because of their relationship to God.

… I think that is very significant