Do To Others

             So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

 

            Have you ever stopped to think about this? We hear it and may even quote it, but the whole basis of this verse is the question of how we want to be treated. How do you want to be treated? There are some easy answers – with love or lovingly, with dignity, with honor… as adult, capable, competent, courageous, fun to be around, intelligent, needed, responsible, valuable … Feel free to add your own wishes.

            At the same time, I strongly doubt that you want every person you encounter – on any day, let alone every day – to enthusiastically sing  your praises to everyone in earshot, or to thank you repeatedly for being such a wonderful person. After maybe an hour, you might want to hide or beat someone about the head and shoulders if they so much as open their mouth. Sometimes, we don’t need the “Oh you’re wonderful” as much as we need a “We need to talk. There’s a problem.” And that’s part of loving, too. And sometimes, what we want more than anything is for people to just leave us alone!

            Sadly, we don’t have little LED displays over our heads to tell each other how we want to be treated now. It doesn’t help that sometimes, we don’t know how we want to be treated either. Some people have a knack for reading people. For those of us who aren’t or who spend a lot of time in their own minds so we don’t even notice the clues we’re given, taking some time to consider the answers.

            One idea that has come part-way to mind is to come up with a different question than “How are you?” or with a question that follows up on “How are you?” I’m not sure what that question should be. One possibility would be for us to practice saying “How can I pray for you?” It would seem awkward until we got used to it.

                This is a habit we can build. I know because I’ve built a similar habit. I used to answer “How are you” with some snarky answer. I decided that since people generally answer this question the same way, I would respond with some variation on “I’m doing wonderfully” It’s now my automatic response. If I can learn to do that, I can learn to ask how I can pray for them. And I can either pray on the spot, or pray as I walk away, because if we don’t pray, we shouldn’t ask.

            That brings us to another somewhat obvious habit to build. Whether or not we mention praying for people, when we see people or as we walk away after talking with them, we should pray for them. I don’t know about you, but that’s an obvious way we can do as we would have done to us.

            Another possibility would be to work on the habit of finding something about every encounter that we can thank or compliment the person for.  This might be easier at times, because we can always thank someone for holding a door, letting us go first or some other little service.  If we happen to like their car, their hat, their pet, or their pleasing manner, or something else, why not tell the person so?