Posts Tagged: the Golden Rule
“On Resigning from Being a Professional Advice-Giver”
I was giving my sweetheart unsolicited advice about her driving yesterday. Fortunately, she called me on this practice. Instead of getting defensive, I got quiet and thought about the matter, and I decided that she is absolutely right. That is something I do, especially with her, but not exclusively with her. And it is something that I do a lot.
So, I have decided that just for today, I am not giving anyone any advice. Will I survive? Will they? Maybe. I don’t know.
One thing I know for sure: I don’t like receiving unsolicited advice! Sometimes, I don’t even like the advice for which I’ve asked. This is the case especially when their advice is spot on. Perhaps I should entertain the radical notion that other people don’t like it when I treat them to my amateur “wisdom” either.
In a sense, refusing to be an advice-giver is just one application of Jesus’ broad-spectrum prescription for how to treat other people: “Therefore whatever you want others to do for you, do so for them . . . .” (Matthew 7:12, New American Standard Bible) What I don’t like receiving, I probably shouldn’t be giving.
For some good, simple advice on the giving of advice, you might want to look at some good thoughts from Sarah Koontz at https://livingbydesign.org/biblical-advice-giving/. (And yes, I do see the double-irony in advising you to go to a website that gives you advice about giving—or rather, not giving—advice!)
“Getting Over My ‘Sorry, But’”
A friend of mine said that a friend of his said something to him that was very demeaning. He talked to his friend about this the next day. His friend apologized, but then uttered a word that emasculated the apology: the word “but.”
We can apologize, or we can explain. But we can’t do both at the same time about the same issue. We need—I need—to get over our “Sorry, but-ness.”
Another friend of mine said that years ago he had trained himself to simply say that he was sorry, and stop right there. It’s a great practice, but difficult to pull off. I don’t remember, but I suspect that it took him a good while to get good at this practice.
I think that I might be able to learn how to do this, but it might take a lot of biting my tongue until it bleeds. But aside from such a radical approach, there is an even more radical approach. This more radical approach to my sorry but is to think how I feel when someone else “apologizes,” and then launches into a big, “but” that explains away the apology, though not the original offense.
You might accuse me of playing the Golden Rule trump card, and you’d be right. So much of ethics and good relationship skills boils down to treating others as we would like them to treat us. Not as they do treat us, but as we would like them to treat us.
Golden Rule or Sorry But—that seems to be the basic choice. Sorry! I wish it were more complicated, but it isn’t!
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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