Monday, May 31, 2010

Walking In Love - Putting Others First

Here in Germany I live by the Rhine River and that is where I like to go when I do some running. But I am not the only person who likes to make use of the path by the Rhine and some days there is quite a bit of congestion on that path. Sometimes with other people running, people riding bicycles, and people walking there is not much room available. Besides that, it seems that a lot of people don't have any interest in moving out of the way for anyone else and I have heard some angry words and seen some mean looks that people give one another just because no one seems to want to make room for anyone else.

Well, recently I was thinking about some Bible verses that fit with this situation. In 1 Corinthians 13:5 the Amplified Bible says: "Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self seeking". Then Philippians 2:3-4 in the New King James Bible translation tells us, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others." While these verses are probably not what most people would consider their favorites, they are powerful verses that show us an important truth; we should put the needs of others before our own desires.

Now, I am not saying that you should let people push you around and take advantage of you. But what I am saying is that as much as we are able we should do things that help and benefit others even if it is not something that directly helps or benefits us personally. It is easy to get so caught up in our own world and what we want or need to do and then just plow ahead in life no matter how others are impacted by what we do. This area of walking in love towards others is something we must continually work on because we all tend to be too self-centered.

After my thoughts about this the other day I have been making more of an effort to try to find ways to help others and not just focus on what I want. Just today I stopped to wait and let someone go into a store, and even open the door for them, although I myself was in a bit of a rush. The result was that the person just looked at me a bit surprised and that made me smile. Romans 5:5 says that as Christians the love of God is in us and I think it would do all of us some good if we found some ways to let that love out by putting the needs of others ahead of our own needs. What a different world it would be if this was something everyone did!