Musings at Altitude

I’ve been struggling lately with one particular passage in the Bible – Luke 6:31-34:

“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior:  ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!  If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back?  Run-of-the-mill sinners do that.  If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal?  Garden-variety sinners do that.  If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity?  The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.”

And then in Luke 6:37:

“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults – unless of course you want the same treatment.”

I can’t tell you how much I struggle with this.  One of the hardest things in the world for me to do is to love those who disagree so aggressively with me.  I suffer from the “it’s so obvious that I’m right” syndrome and when anyone steps up and offers a different opinion or provides an alternative path to reaching the same objective, it irritates me beyond belief.  My wife has gone as far as to say, “wouldn’t the world be better if everybody was just like you”, as she in her own subtle (or not-so-subtle) way tries to show me the weakness in my character here.  She has also told me at times that I’m the type of guy that really doesn’t like working for anyone else because I hate someone else in that position of authority telling me what to do.  Unfortunately, she is mostly right on that point too.

The older I get the more I look at myself and see so clearly the areas of my character and personality that need changing.  I guess that’s part of maturing, but I really struggle when I see how I’m supposed to act and then realize how I want to act!  Those two seem to be extremely opposed to each other at times because I just want to get things done.  My personality is Ready-Fire-Aim, meaning we’ll perfect the path to target after we’ve got things moving in any direction.  Some have even said that my personality is actually Fire-Ready-Aim, and I can’t argue with that either.  Sometimes you just have to act, and then plan, and then perfect the path to target.

I’m not yet sure where this thinking is leading me, but I am sure that I have lots of work to do to apply the scriptures above to my work and to my life.  It’s clear that I’m to love others – my enemies, my antagonists, my non-agreeing partners – everyone.  It certainly won’t be easy.  It’s a lot easier to love those that love me; it’s a lot easier to snuggle up (in a business perspective) to those who agree with me; it’s a lot easier to seek alliances and affirmation rather than to bridge differences and overcome disparities in thinking.

This one will take some time, but maybe, just maybe, by understanding what the expectation is I’m already one step closer to meeting it!  What I really worry about are the setbacks that will almost certainly come during my journey to achieving this expected level of love.  Hopefully it won’t be one step forward and two steps back…maybe I should focus on one step forward and only one step back for now!