A Wandering...

"If you obey the royal law, expressed by the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' all is well..." James 2:8

And here's one quick thought on this version of the Golden Rule, a basic pattern to remember. When you're trying to follow it, to literally "love your neighbor as yourself," and "do unto them as you would have them do unto you," the first step is not to think of yourself: not to think, "Let's see, I like to pamper myself and love myself and so now I'm going to pamper and love you like that..."

No! First, observe the other person with love and curiosity about what would make them feel loved and, in the spirit of Jesus, and now outside of yourself, you will begin to love the other person with a first-handedness that is how you yourself want to be loved. 

I've shared this quote here before, but I love the old writer Henry Scougall's words, "Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves..."

Let's you and I become great wanderers of that sort, my friends! Especially at Christmas, as we seek to prove the Incarnation with our lives!