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“Love your neighbor as yourself.”  – Matthew 22:39 

How are we supposed to understand what it means to love someone – our neighbor – unless we have been exposed to love ourselves?  You might say the same question applies to suffering; for how can we truly understand another person’s pain unless we have had at least some exposure to suffering ourselves?  We are only able to love our neighbors because we first experienced it ourselves.  Love is acquired from someone who loved us first.  Then and only then do we have it to give away.

Recently I attended an early morning breakfast event that was in the neighborhood of my former corporate business office.  So, afterwards on the spur of the moment I took the opportunity to drop in.  It had been twelve years since my departure from that company, yet as I wandered the hallways I was both amazed and humbled by the number of old friends who sprang from their desks when they saw me, greeting me with hugs and handshakes.  A similar experience occurred a few years ago after I had suffered a pulmonary embolism that nearly took my life and spent several days in the hospital.  Old friends appeared at my bedside out of the woodwork.  Such experiences have re-awakened in me the power of being loved and the need to pass that love along.

“There’s a reason “It’s a Wonderful Life” has been so resonant for decades,” writes Harvard business professor Clayton Christiansen in his book How Will You Measure Your Life?  “[for] what matters most in the darkest hours of George Bailey’s life are the many personal relationships he has invested in along the way.  He recognizes, by the end of the film, that though he is poor, his life is rich in friendships.”  At the conclusion of the movie George receives a gift from his guardian angel Clarence, a copy of the book Tom Sawyer.  Inside the cover Clarence had written a message reminding George that “no man is a failure who has friends.”  Then George’s brother Harry raises his glass, “To my big brother, George,” he toasts, “the richest man in town.”

Like George Bailey I think I must be the richest man in town.  May I be ever mindful of opportunities to love others the way my many friends have shone love to me.

“His brothers were jealous of him . . .”  – Genesis 37:11 

I’m sure you are familiar with the story.  If not from the Bible in the Book of Genesis certainly you’ve seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s acclaimed musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.  It begins with Jacob, father of twelve sons, who shows favoritism toward Joseph by giving him a special colorful coat.  Because of that the other brothers become jealous, kidnap Joseph and sell him into slavery to the Egyptians.  The rest of the story is about Joseph’s rollercoaster rise to power in Egypt as Pharaoh’s faithful right hand man.  Eventually he is reunited with his estranged family when they show up in Egypt begging for food in the midst of a great famine in their home country of Canaan.  Joseph not only forgives his brothers for what they had done to him, but because of his powerful leadership position is able to save his family from starvation.

Have you ever found yourself in a favored position only to be scorned by others who are jealous of you?  Promoted over your peers?  Dated the prettiest girl, or the handsome star athlete?  Been victorious in a sporting event or contest?  Won an election?  Attained extraordinary financial success?  Or simply been someone’s favorite for no particular reason?  It happened to me in eighth grade.  We had this math teacher named Mr. Collins who for some unexplainable reason seemed to favor me over almost all my classmates.  On occasion he would leave the classroom which, as you might expect, then turned into chaos.  Upon his return everyone in the class got punished except – you guessed it – yours truly.  Talk about being a victim of jealousy!!

Others being jealous, unfortunately, is a price we pay for success and good fortune.  What we must guard against, however, is shying away from it for fear of the jealousy that will inevitably occur.  Rather, it should be our duty to use such successes, accomplishments, favored positions, and calls to leadership graciously and responsibly for the betterment of others.  Consider Joseph who set the example, not only rescuing his family from famine and using the opportunity to reconcile with them, but eventually impacting the entirety of the Hebrew people.  Yet in the beginning Joseph had to endure the same response to the favoritism we all experience; for “His brothers were jealous of him.”

“Ears that hear and eyes that see – the Lord has made them both.”  – Proverbs 20:12 

Given that one of our sons loves to fish (fly-fishing especially) and also happens to be the father of two little girls, my wife Tee thought I would appreciate the following story she read recently.  Perhaps you will too.

“For weeks eight-year-old Susie had been looking forward to a particular Saturday fishing trip with her dad.  But when the day finally arrived, it was raining heavily.  Susie wandered around the house all morning grumbling as she peered out the windows, ‘Seems like the Lord would know it would have been better to have the rain yesterday than today.’  Her father tried to explain how important the rain was to the farmers and gardeners.  But Susie only replied, ‘It just isn’t fair.’  Around three o’clock the rain stopped.  There was still time for fishing, so father and daughter quickly loaded their gear and headed for the lake.  Because of the rainstorm the fish were really biting.  Within a couple of hours they returned with a full stringer of fish.  At the family’s fish dinner that night Susie asked to say grace.  She concluded her prayer by saying, ‘And Lord, if I sounded grumpy earlier today, it was because I couldn’t see far enough ahead.”  (God’s Little Devotional Book for Women) 

Unlike eight-year-old Susie most of realize that God did not send the rainstorm with the intention of upsetting Susie’s plans with her dad, nor was its primary purpose to entice the fish to bite in the aftermath.  We all know that rain is simply an act of nature resulting from certain atmospheric conditions.  But how very much like Susie we often are in our failure to “see far enough ahead”.  Is it because we are deaf and blind?  Or could it be because we fail to pause long enough to put aside our selfish desires in order to look and listen for what might be ahead.

The words from the writer of Proverbs should give us a clue.  “Ears that hear and eyes that see – the Lord has made them both.”  But it is up to us to put them to use – to look and to listen.

“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”

• Proverbs 13:20 

As a young teenager I had the opportunity to attend a several-weeks-long sports summer camp.  My best buddy that summer was a guy named Greg.  Greg was a fine athlete whose overall abilities were quite superior to mine, except in certain sports where we competed toe to toe.  Even so, I’m not sure I ever beat him at anything.  At the end of camp that summer in the final track meet we competed against each other in the 440 yard dash.  I was determined to win that race and gave it all I had, but in the end he still edged me out – by maybe half a step.  Greg may have beat me at everything we did, but we nevertheless became inseparable friends that summer.  And in the end what I gained from hanging out with him and competing against him, besides his friendship, was that I returned home a better athlete and for sure a better person.

Who we hang out with inevitably shapes who we are and how we perform.  In my previous corporate career I was privileged to have worked with the finest team anyone could ever ask for.  There was not a single individual on that team who was not far superior to me at their job.  So not unlike that summer I spent with Greg, I had the opportunity to spend several years working with people better than me, which in turn made me better at my job, a better human being, and collectively we produced superior results.

Abraham Lincoln, indisputably our country’s greatest president, appointed a number of his fiercest opponents to serve on his cabinet, some of whom based on education and experience may have been more qualified than Lincoln to serve as president.  Lincoln knew the value of surrounding himself with superior people, a key component to his superior leadership.  It is what highly effective people do.  Neither do athletes shy from competing against stronger opponents.  It is how they become better themselves.

Who we hang out with does shape who we are, or as the Proverbs writer reminds us, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” 

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  – Luke 12:25 

Four friends where flying together in a small single-engine aircraft headed for a weekend fishing excursion when suddenly about half way to their destination the engine began to sputter and eventually died.  After several failed attempts to restart the engine the pilot reached under his seat and retrieved the plane’s one-and-only parachute which he then strapped on.  As he was pushing the door open to bail out the pilot turned and glanced at his friends. “You guys stay here,” he said.  “I’m going to see if I can get some help.”

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life,” Mark Twain once said, “most of which never happened.”  Or as paraphrased by Dave Blanchard in his book Today I Begin a New Life:  “Don’t tell me worrying doesn’t work.  Everything I worry about never happens.”

My college years occurred during the very height of the Vietnam War, so except for college deferments which inevitably ended upon graduation young men my age faced a high probability of being drafted into the military – or such was the conventional belief.  For those of us who got caught up in such beliefs it felt as if death had a noose around our necks.  Worry!!  And all that worry ever did for me was to change me for a time from being an excellent student with high ambitions to a fatalistic mediocre one – but only for a time.  Eventually I did serve in the military and lived to tell about it.  And eventually my ambitions returned, most of which have come to fruition plus some.  Most of the things I worried about never happened.  And the time I spent worrying, all that did was to serve as a distraction from pursuing my ambitions.

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  What about those three fishing buddies abandoned by their pilot friend (friend?)?  What about me back in my college days?  And what about you?  How has worrying added to your life?  How has it added to the quality of your life?  How much of what you have worried about has ever even happened?  “Do not be afraid, little flock,” Jesus assures us, “for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”  So why do we worry so much?