Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Law of Attraction

There are people who believe in a "law of the universe," they call "The Law of Attraction." The gist of which is that if you think happy, positive, self-affirming thoughts, then good things will magically be attracted to you. (Sounds like Hinduistic karma stripped of its religious overtones, and applied to thoughts more than actions.) The "law" does have some basis in truth, there are scientific studies that show people who are given placebo's (sugar pills), a statistically significant number of them show improvement, just because they believe the pill would help.

In college psych classes I learned about what was called self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think something bad is going to happen, you may inadvertently cause it to happen, when it didn't have to in the first place. (For example all you golfers out there who think the ball is going to go in the woods... it probably will) Or in the case of the woman above (I hope she is not related to any of my readers!), if you don't think anyone could be attracted to you, you may not put the effort in to look and act your best, thus causing no one to be attracted to you.

There is a biblical law of attraction, it is summed up in this passage: 2Sa 22:27 With the pure You will show Yourself pure; And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. (NKJV) How we act towards God and others causes a similar type reaction from God. There is one twist with the biblical law, and that is thinking low thoughts of yourself can produce great results. Mt 23:12 "And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. Quite a bit different from the way the world's law of attraction, and one of the many reasons God says His ways are not our ways...    A dash of humility will help keep the fire burning.