June 27, 2021
One day last week, I had one of my best days ever. I woke up to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon was sizzling in a skillet. Marie was fixing me a terrific breakfast before I headed in to work. When I arrived at Turney Center, all of my coworkers greeted me with a smile on their faces and lo and behold, the inmates treated me even better. Several times during the day, different coworkers called and asked if there was anything they could do for me to make my day easier. I even won a coupon for a free piece of pizza in a drawing for employees which I redeemed on my way home. When I got home, Marie, who had the day off, had already mowed the grass and had a mouthwatering supper waiting for me. It was just a glorious day. If I was going to plan a “me” day for myself, it couldn’t have been any better than this day. Then, a funny thing happened. I woke up! After dealing with the initial disappointment of waking up and realizing it was all just a dream, a scripture came to my mind. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In my dream, others were doing for me all day long. My day couldn’t have been any better, even if I had scripted it. The lingering question in my mind was this. If this is the way I would like to be treated, why am I not treating those people to whom I come into contact like people were treating me in my dream? I have known about the “golden rule” for at least fifty-five of my fifty-seven and a half years and have been quoting it nearly that long. I have even preached sermons about it. My dream kind of turned the golden rule on its head for me. Most of us try to live our lives treating others the way we would like to be treated. But my dream showed me the golden rule is much harder to live than it is to quote. It means that I don’t do for others out of any desire to receive something back or to gain favor in another person’s eyes. I do for others, just because it is the right thing to do. I even need to go out of my way to do for others, because not only is it the right thing to do, but because Jesus went way out of His way for me. In fact, He went out of His way by taking my place on a cross. He paid my sin debt so I could spend eternity with Him. Dying for others…if that’s not the ultimate example of going out of your way to do for others, I’m not sure you can find one. “Do unto others the way you would have them do unto you.” Now that’s worth pondering, and doing!
Be blessed and go be a blessing. Andy