Imagine

In the 7th chapter of the New Testament book of Matthew, there is a story about prayer where Jesus tries to tell people how much God wants good things for them. So, he asks the crowd some rhetorical questions. 

“Imagine your kid asks for some bread. Would you give them a stone? If they asked for fish, would you hand them a snake?”

Then Jesus says that if even normal folks know how to give good things to their kids, then surely God is better than that. Surely, God wants to treat us better than we treat our kids.

Belief in a deity aside, I don’t think anyone of us would disagree that giving your hungry kid a rock instead of bread isn’t something you do for someone you love. 

We all know how to treat someone we love.  We strive for people we love. We make sacrifices for the people we love. We try hard to please the people we love and give them gifts we believe will excite them. We go to great lengths to show them how we feel, we try hard to show others how much we love the people we do. 

We know how to love people. And we know how to show people we love them.

Right? 

Now, imagine what would happen if you treated yourself the way you would treat someone you love.