Givers Not Takers
Easter Island is one of the remotest islands in the South Pacific. When the Europeans discovered it in 1722, they could not have guessed it had once teemed with life. The only signs of past civilization were about a thousand strange stone figure carvings of elongated heads scattered over the sixty-three square miles of the island. There were no trees, crops, or animals—just a handful of starving natives.
Later geological investigations discovered signs of a diverse ecology and a thriving human population. The bare landscape had once been forested with trees and home to no less than thirty different species of birds. Other animals had made the island their home, and several tribes of humans had lived there together.
What had transformed this once-vibrant island into a wasteland of lifeless statues? Scientists who studied the fossil record and artifacts tell a sobering story. The islanders who once lived there were poor stewards of the limited resources the small island provided. Deforestation, war, and cannibalism had stripped it of life and destroyed its ecology. Easter Island stands today as a testimony of the destructive nature of selfishness. If all you do is take without giving anything back, nothing is left but wind and stone.
It was John Donne who said, “No man is an island.” We cannot lead disconnected lives and survive. Human beings need communities to live in. As people created in the image of a God of love, we thrive on giving, sharing, and helping. Selfishness, on the other hand, saps us of meaning and reduces us to something less than God intended.
Jesus is life itself (John 14:6; 11:25; Col. 3:4). No one is more fully himself than he. All the fullness of God dwells in him (Col. 1:19; 2:9), yet he continues to fill all in all (Eph. 1:23). He does not maintain his fullness by selfishly consuming everything and everyone around him. Rather he gives is life so that others may live (1 Pet. 2:24).
Jesus explains God’s design for us to be givers and not takers with the helpful illustration of a seed in John 12:24-25:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
We are seeds that live only by giving our all. This is the great paradox Christ demonstrated by dying on the cross for us.
When you’re feeling selfish, think of the desolation of Easter Island. Tightening our grip on what we think will fulfill us only makes it slip from our grasp. By loosening our grip and opening our hands we take hold of true life and find meaning and purpose.
