Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 424 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

15 Practical Guidelines to Live By

Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 24 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate you to live a rich and satisfying life this week. Today we will explore 15 Practical Guidelines to Live By.

We are broadcasting from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The day this episode originally airs will be Labor Day in the United States, which is a day set aside to remember the working class laborer who has been an integral part of the building our country. We will also be heading back to Marietta today for a week. Paula is having a few of her Charlotte area friends up to The Big House for a quilting outing and to watch the fireworks at Marietta’s annual Sternwheel Festival. Since Marietta is built on the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, sternwheelers and river traffic have been a big part of the town’s heritage. The fireworks display on Saturday night rivals the best displays anywhere. We usually try to make it to the festival when possible.

It is great to be able to get together with friends and family and share life together. This is usually fairly easy to do for most of us. What is not as easy is to treat other people well who may not like or who do not treat us well. As I was thinking about this, it brings to mind what the words that Jesus spoke that we refer to as “The Golden Rule,” and it motivated me to list some tips that may help all of us. As we break camp and head out on today’s trek let’s look at…

15 Practical Guidelines to Live By

As part of Jesus’s teaching one principle that is hard for all of us to grasp is to love those who do not love us, and yet as much as humanly possible we should endeavor to do so. In Luke 6:27-31 Jesus said, "But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you."

The last verse, "Do to others as you would like them to do to you," is considered “The Golden Rule,” and all of us like to think we follow it. But do we follow the verses that precede it? I love the simplicity of the Golden Rule, and a closely related verse that sums up the entire Bible, which is Galatians 5:14, "For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

It’s true. The rule of treating others as you would want to be treated in their place will ultimately lead to your own happiness. Let’s say that you apply the Golden Rule in all of your interactions with other people, and you help your neighbors, you treat your family with kindness, you go the extra mile for your co-workers, you help a stranger in need, you even help those who have not been kind to you.

Now, those actions will undoubtedly be good for the people you help and are kind to…but you’ll also notice an interesting result. People will treat you better. Beyond that, though, you will find a growing satisfaction in yourself, a belief in yourself, and knowledge that you love yourself properly and are making an impact on your world as you are creating a living legacy.

The truth is, on a day-to-day basis, living by the Golden Rule will make you a better person, will make those around you happier, and will make the community you live in a better place.