Oops, Missed the Turn!

Scripture

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:12-14 NIV)

Oops, Missed the Turn!

With all our sophisticated GPS devices finding an address is pretty easy – but as I move quickly down a road, I still miss a turn off. It’s a combination of speed, unfamiliarity with an area and not quickly recognizing the entrance or on-ramp.

I haven’t made the link between Jesus’ “do to others what you would have them do to you” and his metaphor about real life being found through a narrow gate on a narrow road. Apparently, this road to living as kindly to others as we would to ourselves is available, but we don’t have the spiritual GPS to find it as often as we might.

The way we do business, the way we transact politics, the way we drive, the way we treat one another socially, our care for the poor, our concern for justice, is too often on the wide road and not the harder road.

Tuning our spiritual GPS to hear Jesus’ respect for the other requires awareness and discipline.

A Prayer for Today

O God, let me see the small gate to real life. So many ways keep me in control, self-protected and oblivious to others – but it isn’t good for me or them. Let me try the little gate and go through to experience you in others, your love for the world in its brokenness and serve where I am able …. For Jesus’ sake