Good Morning,

Yes, this is Biblical and, yes, it was written over 2,000 years ago. Lastly, yes, it is still as relevant today as it was way back then.

How would you like others to treat you? Are you treating others in the same way? It can be expressed in many ways. In business, I have heard it expressed: “Be careful who you step on you as you move up the career ladder as they may be the same people who step on you on your way back down.” Many times, we fight so hard clawing our way to the top that we pay little attention to those in our way, casting them aside as collateral damage.

Families tend to have the same problems. The old adage “Apples don’t fall too far from the tree” applies here where we treat our children like our parents treated us and, later in life, wonder why they turned out just like us. We are too busy “raising a family” to spend time just loving them.

Sometimes, we marginalize people who disagree with us, particularly when we are in positions of power, not thinking that we may not always be in this position.

As educators, do we treat our students as we wish we had been treated, or do we treat them, particularly in higher education, as just a name and a grade? I know that is how I felt when I was in college. Only a very few professors even knew my name.

I’m sure most of you can come up with your own real life examples of what not to do. So many different sayings have come about based on this simple Bible verse: We reap what we sow, and What goes around comes around are a few more examples.

Today's message, and I think it applies to all of us is: Think about the unintended consequences of how we are treating people. Is this how we wish others to treat us in similar situations? If it is, we shouldn't be surprised when, down the road, the tables are turned.

Jim