Do to others as you would have them do to you. -Luke 6:31
It was 2:30 in the morning; our band was scheduled pretty tight, and we were pulling an all-nighter through Montana to make the 500-mile haul to that next gig.
We had a 1965 MC5A (ex-Greyhound) MCI coach (with about four million miles on it!). That oil-dripping 8V-71 Detroit got up to 61 mph when you had the throttle wide open and the pedal right to the floorboard!
My brother Randy was driving the graveyard shift and I was sitting up with him as the Firestone retreads ate up that Interstate.
There was no time to hit the brakes for that frost heave in the frozen mountain pavement-and we took it at 61 mph! The front tires hit it first, and when the back wheels followed suit, there was a "diving board" effect that flipped Cliff (our drummer) off his top bunk at the back of the bus, sending him sailing unceremoniously through the air, culminating in an unparachuted landing on the floor.
He wasn't too pleased about that chain of events and let us know it in no uncertain terms!! But hey-we had a long ways to go, so we kept rolling!
I got to thinking about that episode and how our actions impact others. In fact, almost every decision we make has repercussions in others' lives. Just like hitting that wicked road bump rudely interrupted our percussionist's hard-earned sleep, so it is with all our actions.
If we choose to please God, it has a positive effect on those around; if we choose to please ourselves, the impact on others will reflect that selfishness.
If a person chooses to drink and drive, he or she will hurt others. If a person decides to bully, that inflicts pain on others. In fact, our self-serving, self-centered, negative choices will usually end up hurting both ourselves and those around us.
The flip side of that scenario is that when we take the option of godly behaviour, it has the exact opposite effect! When we "do to others what we want them to do to us", we set in motion a chain or cycle of good stuff. Good deeds reproduce themselves into more good deeds. The people we bless by our actions are now motivated to do the same back to us or to "pay it forward" to someone else that needs blessing!
Are my actions and choices helping or hurting those around me?
