Thought for the day

Treat people today the same way that you would expect them to treat you.

It's a pretty good lesson to learn. I hve a pretty short fuse these days and find that some people irritate me when they're petty and two faced. It's the easiest thing in the world to treat someone with contempt, it's much more difficult to treat them better than they expect you to treat them. This is alesson I'm learning ...... slowly.

Whatever you say about the stuff in the Bible, it's stood the test of time. I'm not sure that Harry Potter and James Herriot's books will be around in 2000 years, despite the content. Whatever you think of it, it would be daft to pass of some of the real gems in there that have been read by countless millions of people through the ages.

St. Paul talks of using the lesson to treat people well at all times, paricularly those who are bad to you. He talks of kindness to enemies as "heaping coals of fires" on their heads (Romans Ch 12 v 20). This isn't some ritualistic torture - in old Eastern times, hot coals would be conveyed from house to house in pottery carried on the head in earthern vessels. The coals would be used to start fires in each home.

The place we live in today is sometimes a cold, callous place where people don't have time for each other, but at the end of the day, life passes so quickly. Bitterness and anger aren't great virtues and neither do they help anyone. As hard as it may seem today, share some warmth with others, particularly those who may not deserve it. What goes around comes around. Share bitterness, and you can be pretty sure you'll get biterness back. As corny as it sounds, try sharing some warmth. Even if it's not reciprocated, you get a satisfying feeling of haing done the right thing.