Morning Devotional

August  23, 2005
"Clifford, the Big Red Dog"      
    by Don Emmitte

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Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12 NLT).

For those of you who know me very well, you know that I tend to learn my best lessons from observing and interacting with my family. Being close to my grandchildren has given me so many opportunities to see God at work. Their growth is phenomenal. So many things change so quickly at their age. Being toddlers, they have begun to exhibit preferences. This is especially true in their toys. They are pretty good about sharing most things. Kyle and Brandy have done an incredible job in teaching them to share. However, they are just like any toddler. They don’t like to share all the time. Logan has one particular stuffed animal that is his favorite. It is “Clifford, the Big Red Dog.” For a while, he didn’t go anywhere without Clifford. The quickest way to see a “meltdown” is for Faith to take Clifford away from Logan.

Don’t get the wrong impression. Logan takes toys from Faith as well. His favorite taunt is to take the toy and throw it over the safety gate that separates the downstairs from the upstairs part of the house. Of course, these moments become a teaching opportunity for them. However, the key is in the illustration of the truth that among the many things we share as human beings, simply stated, we are all selfish. It’s built into our DNA. Not that this is all bad. In fact the one commandment that Jesus said that summed up everything God expects of us relies on our being this way. Jesus said we were to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So self-love is assumed. It’s interesting to me that Jesus doesn’t tell us to stop being selfish; he tells us how to turn our preoccupation with self into something that will take us beyond ourselves. That’s the key!

We all care for ourselves and look after our own needs. We’re all number one in our own book. Jesus was counting on this when he told us how to love. He said to love others the way you love yourself. Look after someone else’s needs the way you look after your own. If you want to find out how to love someone, observe how you treat yourself, and then do that for someone else.

This shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. If you want people to listen to you, listen to them. If you want people to applaud you, applaud them. If you want to be recognized, recognize someone. If you want people to take you seriously, take them seriously. If you’re getting hungry, then you can assume that others around you are probably hungry too. How else did Jesus know to take care of feeding the crowd he had been speaking to all day except that he was hungry himself?  You could go as far as to say that this is precisely why we have needs, so we can understand and deal with the needs of those around us. Noticing others by all the attention we pay ourselves is a way of using our natural born instincts for something better. This is one of the great things about fellowship. If everyone is concerned about everyone else, everyone gets taken care of without having to focus on us. Think about this as you go through this day—that your own needs are more than likely an indication of the needs of those around you, and try satisfying your need by meeting theirs.