The Silent Ripple: Deeds Beyond Reward
Mike recounts a Bible passage in which Peter's shadow serves to heal the sick, emphasizing that Peter was merely a vessel for God's power - unaware of the miracles occurring around him.
In an age driven by boastfully sharing our narratives, even good deeds and extemporaneous acts of kindness can often feel transactional. There is a magic that occurs when good deeds are done for their own sake, which produce secondary, tertiary, and unforeseen reverberations of wholesome goodwill.
There’s a Bible verse within the book of Acts in which Peter, the religious leader of the community, walks down the street and heals the sick and ailing townsfolks around him.
But what the pastor really emphasized was that the shadow of Peter had served to heal these people. It wasn’t that Peter himself was intentionally healing these people; but rather, he served as a vessel to God’s power, passively carrying through him God’s power upon the earth to heal all these people.
And the distinct aspect of this that struck me was that Peter had no idea. This was a phenomenon that was occurring unbeknownst to Peter himself as he was walking through the town, past the crowds of sick and suffering people that had amassed, seeking to be healed of their ailments.
And the distinct the really the thing that struck out struck with me was that Peter had no idea like this was this was something this was a phenomenon that was going on unbeknownst to Peter himself when he was walking through the street and when people were when the when the when the town's folks were putting you know were were leaving out their their sick and and and and um their sick and suffering like relatives and stuff trying to get healed by Peter
And um what struck me about this passage and what struck me about this whole thing was that the power of God was acting through Peter without Peter even knowing and most importantly without Peter even getting the acknowledgement that it was happening
And so like I think so often we you know especially with social media and everything we live in this sort of world where when we do a good when you when when somebody does something good they they want some sort of reward And even the concept of karma sort of implies that for every good thing that I do I'm entitled to some good thing back And I mean whether or not I mean and and and that is a valid thing I mean that's I think it's valid to to I think it's valid to want to be rewarded for doing good work Okay that's not something that should be that that should be sort of you know discouraged or anything but the idea the idea of doing good for goodness sake I guess is what kind of struck out struck to me And the idea that sort of that that we shouldn't do that we shouldn't help other people for the reward of it that that we should help other people for the f for for for for just the the good for just the sake of it for the for its own sake That's what stuck out to me And you know and so often we live in this world where everything is so transactional and like we expect that like oh well we help a you know we give a dollar to a homeless person so maybe therefore the universe owes us a dollar back in some immediate you know in some immediate to medium-term future And that in I mean that's not really I don't I don't want to say it's a selfish thing but it's something that I think is a little bit reductionist and it's it it's it kind of just yeah it reduces kind of the the goodness of of helping each other out the magic It takes away some of the It takes away the magic from helping others and it takes away and it really honestly when I think about it it sort of discredits the Lord because we're making it about us and not about the power of the Lord and about sort of the the joy that just the innate joy of helping somebody else and and and and seeing somebody else around us prosper even if it doesn't immediately affect us even if it doesn't immed even if their prosperity doesn't immediately bring us prosperity And I and but you know what though like even though even though that's maybe e even though that that might disappoint some people to kind of know that you're not going to get that immediately immediate reward I think the bigger thing that I really loved about that notion was that was that along with that notion goes the fact that that there are things there are there are impacts and secondary impacts and tertiary impacts of those good deeds that that we don't even know about
