Ripples

Galatians 6:7 NIV: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

When you read this verse, what is your first reaction? Does your mind veer toward punishment for those who act unjustly? Or do you envision bountiful rewards for those who live rightly and work faithfully?

There really is no right answer, because the concept Paul addresses in this verse is grounded in something as fundamental as Newton’s Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is a reaction. Nothing acts in isolation. Every force released into the world is met with a corresponding force.

Paul’s metaphor, then, is the moral version of this physical law. Every choice sets something in motion. Every action carries consequences that ripple outward through time and space. This is the deep logic behind the law of cause and effect: reality is responsive, and nothing we do simply disappears.

There is an even bigger truth in the metaphor of reaping and sowing, the reality of compounding or amplification. A seed becomes a tree, and a tree produces hundreds, even thousands, of seeds. A single stone sends waves across an entire body of water. The decisions I make today will, in ways I cannot see, touch my great-grandchildren.

Before we get lost in the overwhelm of imagining butterfly effects rippling into future generations, let’s bring this down to the scale of our own daily lives. We are shaped by what we repeatedly do. Over time, our patterns become habits, our habits shape our character, and our character quietly steers the course of our lives.

But even before action comes attention. What we fix our minds on forms what we come to love, and what we love is what we choose. Our decisions flow from our desires—whether they bend inward toward self or outward toward others.

The children in my artwork are intentionally placed at different phases of this process. One has already acted, watching the ripples of his decision spread across the water. One stands on the brink, effort spent, attention given, still free to change course. The third is the one we forget about: where she has given her attention will end up being the choice, and the effect will follow. 

This is the place to start: with what we allow to hold our gaze, because what captures our attention will soon shape our desires, and what we desire will one day be the rock in our hands.