| How Full is Your Bucket? ---God's Law of Reciprocity |
In a book I recently read entitled, How Full is Your Bucket, the authors, Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton (an educational psychologist and best-selling author) say that each one of us has an imaginary bucket and an imaginary dipper, and as we go through life in every interaction with another human being we either pour into their bucket a positive emotion or we dip out of their bucket and leave a negative emptiness.
Clifton was not only a psychologist, but a research scientist. He was awarded the title “Grandfather of Positive Psychology” in 2002 by the American Psychological Association based on years of scientific research. After studying thousands of workers, managers and business leaders he demonstrated the fantastic influence that positive words of praise and encouragement can have on the lives of those around us.
He points out the opposite is true as well. In fact, his early study of psychology caused him to note that the discipline seemed to study only what was wrong---not what was right. So he began a 50-year quest to discover what would happen if you studied what was right and placed your emphasis on the positive.
The statistics in the business world are amazing:
| 1. | Out of 10,000 business units studied in more than 30 countries,
those who receive regular recognition and praise: a. Increased
their individual productivity. |
| 2. | Moreover, he notes the #1 reason people leave their organization is they don’t feel appreciated. |
| 3. | In the workplace, it was determined that the cost of “disengagement” by employees at their jobs costs America $250-300 billion per year. |
| 4. | Unhappy members scare off other potential members---for good. |
| 5. | It was discovered that in the workplace, 35% of Americans received no recognition at their job last year.. |
| 6. | And then, the survey reported that 9 out of 10 people say they are more active and productive when they are around positive people. |
When we speak negatively, we ultimately are speaking death.
Example: In the Korean War, the U.S. lost more prisoners-of-war than during any other conflict. We lost 38% of our POW’s in the camps.
| 1. | Not because the North Korean physically abused them, but because they cut them off from any kind of positive reinforcement or positive emotions. | ||||||||
| 2. | The way they did this was by tricking them into:
It created psychological isolation, the likes of which we had never experienced. Grown men huddled in a corner, covered their heads with a cloth, and within two days were dead---because they had lost all hope. The truth is that everyone has an invisible bucket and we are at our best when our buckets are overflowing---and at our worst when they are empty. |
It is sad that Donald Clifton had to go to modern science to discover these truths while God has revealed them in Scriptures all the while:
| Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21) |
Those who studied the tragic experience of our POW’s in the Korean Conflict clearly documented it. But it is just as true in our homes, corporate settings and churches.
Modern science states that we experience approximately 20,000 individual moments every day.
Everyone has an invisible dipper. In each interaction, you can use your dipper either to fill or to empty out another’s bucket. A greater truth is that when we fill another’s bucket with our dipper, our own bucket rises equally to what we have given away.
Shakespeare put it this way:
| “The quality of mercy is not strained, It dropped as the gentle rain upon the earth beneath, It is twice blessed, It blesses him who give and him who receives.” |
|
| It’s just like when Jesus took the loaves and fishes and blessed them and gave them to His disciples; as they gaves away the pieces, their own 12 baskets were filled to overflowing. |
Clifton’s grand discovery in the metaphor of the invisible bucket and imaginary dipper is clearly revealed in God’s own law of reciprocity. Jesus himself taught his disciples:
| For with whatever measure you deal out [to others], it shall be dealt to you in return. (Matthew 7:12) |
That’s the exact law of Clifton’s bucket and dipper, but Jesus took it to an even greater level when he said:
| It is more blessed to give than receive. (Acts 20:35) |
Not only do you receive back in equal portions to what you have given away, but Jesus is saying when you give to another you receive again an even greater portion than you have given away.
This truth is described again by Jesus himself:
| Give and it shall be given to you, in good measure—pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men pour into your bosom. (Luke 6:38) |
I’ve always found that in God’s economy the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When God is a part of your giving experience, He always adds an increased measure.
Whether our giving is to our fellow man or to God, when we give in His name, He promises to bless and increase it. In fact, the Biblical teaching on giving is the only one that comes to us with an invitation to test God:
| “Bring ye the whole
tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house, and
TEST ME now in this,” says the Lord of Hosts, “I will
not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing
until there is no more need.” (Malachi 3:10) |
|
| . | I’m glad that I have some Biblical
knowledge and can by the Spirit of God recognize truth regardless
of where I find it. The Scriptures state that “All truth comes
from God!” |
Sometimes it takes a secular source for people to stop and realize truth.
Yet, the question remains, how can we fill another’s bucket and
our own at the same time?
†
Back to top