I am sure you have had someone in your life tell you to follow “the golden rule.”  Today I wonder if we are teaching our children and modeling the simple practice of following the “golden rule.”

Do you even know what the “golden rule” is?  If not, let me share it with you.

DO UNTO OTHERS, AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

I dare say that if all of us would follow just this one simple task our lives and our world would be a much different place.  Just think about it for a minute if you would.  If you acted impulsively and responded harshly to someone wouldn’t you want to receive forgiveness?  If you were sick, wouldn’t you want someone to help take care of you?  If you were poor, wouldn’t you want someone to help feed your children?  If you were lonely, wouldn’t you want someone to be your friend?

I guess it is easy to know what we would want if we were in those situations and hope that we receive it, but it seems a much greater task to see others in those situations and be motivated to give them what we would want if we were in their shoes.  I guess that is probably because most of the time our favorite person to think about is “me.”  Can you relate to that?

Have you ever had someone act impulsively and respond harshly to you and you carry a grudge and say “he had know business talking to ‘me’ that way?”

Have you ever had a friend or a neighbor that is sick and you say, “ ‘I’ am working late today, ‘I’ don’t have time to stop by?”

Have you ever know someone to be poor and without food, only to say, “ ‘I’ just can’t afford to help and then go out and spend $40 on a date or $300 for an i-pod?'”

Have you ever been around someone who was always alone.  For whatever reason they couldn’t make friends and you found yourself saying, “She is just too much for ‘me’ to handle.  She wears ‘me’ out.”

Here’s a thought… What if we started putting ourselves in others shoes and responding to them the way that we would want them to respond to us, if the roles were reversed?