Righteousness, Mercy, Prosperity ...

Friday, Sept 19, 2014. What is it that helps us to live in a good way? What is it that helps us to gain prosperity? How does a social interaction which leads to prosperity look like? There are important ingredients, which lead to prosperity - we need to be very careful here.

Law and Mercy …

Recently I have been in several meetings where different institutions from several different states are to work together on some joint task. But one of the institutions is larger than the others - it has some kind of lead since the others depend on some of its activities. Unfortunately, this institution has some leaders who like it to impose his will on others, - to make decisions without consulting the others. And unfortunately he does it with the everyone, including a good part of his own institution. I fear that this will not help very much in the long run. A good development needs to have the different people on the same level, and needs good cooperation, not one to make all decisions telling the others only after everything is set.

What is it that leads to a good development, to prosperity, to high quality, to motivated people. Dictatorship never leads to prosperity in a country or community. But freedom and justice does. A balance of power does. Perspective does, and perspective comes from opportunities, from justice, and from mercy! Let us listen to what God says to King Belteshazzar in the book of Daniel:

27 Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.” (Daniel 4, 27)

Qualities that help …

If you look into your own choices, you might find that there are several things to be taken care of. First, there is your own behaviour. You are asked to act in a righteous way. Righteousness is of course a quite deep and universal term. Start with justice: follow the law and the rules. Work on the rules together with others, to have good rules which help everyone. We need to work on the rules, in our family, in our community, in our church, in our state.

Second, you are asked to show mercy. Do not leave the others in their misery. Do what helps them. It is clear that you cannot help everyone, but if everyone helps a little bit, there is a lot of help given. It is also clear, that a lot of the help will not help that much - there are enough people who contiue to follow destructive behavioural patterns, even if you help them a lot. But mercy needs to have the lead when we talk about this, and when we make our decisions.

Prosperity needs sustainable relationships which grow in an environment where you can rely on justice, on ressources, on contracts. It needs an environment where humans treat each other with compassion and mercy. And it needs the freedom to live creativity, to invest, to try out, and to respect the ideas people have. In the above verse from Daniel, God tells this to the king. He also tells it to each of us, to you and to me. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts