Nashville, Tennessee, United States - The Upper Room Daily Devotional "The Golden Rule" for Tuesday, 9 September 2014 - Read Matthew 7:7-12

Nashville, Tennessee, United States - The Upper Room Daily Devotional "The Golden Rule" for Tuesday, 9 September 2014 - Read Matthew 7:7-11 “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?
12 “Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.
In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.(Matthew 7:12 (NRSV))
The voice of the catalog clerk on the phone was heavily accented. She seemed nervous and unsure as she requested my details — name, address, billing information. She left me on hold without warning me first. I became increasingly annoyed, and when she asked me several times to repeat details of my order, I finally lost patience, told her to cancel my order, and hung up (intending to phone back and get someone more competent to take my order). Then a thought struck me: Maybe she is a new immigrant, and this is her first day on her first job. Perhaps if I had been more patient I could have given her some self-confidence and helped her learn how to do the work without being so nervous.
Then I remembered what Jesus said about what we do to one of the least of his sisters or brothers.(See Matt. 25:31-40.)I thought: What if this had been Jesus that I’d been talking to and I had behaved like that toward him?
It was too late to make amends to the clerk, knowing it would be impossible to reach the same person on the phone again. All I could do was to ask God to forgive me for my insensitivity and pray that in the future I would remember to treat others as members of Jesus’ family.
The Author: Charles Levy (Ontario, Canada)
Thought for the Day: Who needs my patience today?
Prayer: Loving God, help us to treat others kindly no matter what the circumstances, remembering that whatever we do for the least of your children, we do for you. Amen.
Prayer focus: Customer service representatives
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