Tiny Devotional for Sunday, 5-23-2021

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, hope of a spam and egg sandwich.

Do not eat the bread of a selfish person;
Or desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
He says to you, “Eat and drink!”
But his heart is not with you.
You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten
And waste your compliments.
Proverbs 23:6-8, NASV

It’s not just food, of course. A selfish person doesn’t want to share ANY resources. For them, any benefit you receive means that they will lose something.

It’s called a “zero-sum game,” meaning that the net increase of any interaction, or set of interactions, is zero.

Question: is that understanding valid?

It all depends on how the system is defined. The more narrowly you look at things, the more likely it is to be accurate. In a small, closed system, the selfish person is correct: Vanessa has two spam-and-egg sandwiches; if I eat one, she loses one. That’s zero-sum.

But, we really don’t live in closed systems.  

I eat a spam-and-egg sandwich, and gain the energy to write this blog. You read the blog, and are amused. Your amusement allows you to manage some other drain on your resources, coming from inevitable life events (kids, spouse, work, age). We are adding value to the system.
And, on the way back from church, I stop at Publix and buy more spam and eggs. Vanessa can have a sandwich today, and tomorrow, and for as many days as we can imagine.

That’s why the selfish person is wrong. They place limits, which don’t really exist.

Want to share my sandwich? 
Or my government?

Peace be on your household.