Love one another

Reflections

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On my short drive to work I often like to listen to news on the radio to find out the latest happenings in the community, nation and world. 

As you are aware, there is a lot of craziness happening everywhere and it can be disheartening and even frustrating at times. In order to help start my day off in a positive way, I often like to turn off the radio and sing, hum or whistle an uplifting song for the last few minutes of my drive. 

One morning I was singing to myself a hymn entitled, “Love One Another.” The song lyrics are: “As I have loved you, love one another. This new commandment, love one another. By this shall men know, ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” While I was singing this song driving to work, another car cut me off causing me to slam on the brakes. I immediately got angry and proceeded to yell at this car for cutting me off (even though my windows were up and he obviously couldn’t hear me). 

Before I even finished the yelling, I remembered the song I had just been singing. Whoops! If I was going to be a true disciple of Christ, I needed to follow the lesson of the song I was singing. I quickly realized how hypocritical it was for me to be singing a song about loving others while getting angry for someone cutting me off. As I laughed at the irony of my situation and thought about the words I had just been singing, my attitude towards the person who cut me off quickly changed. I started thinking to myself all the possible positive explanations as to why he cut me off. Maybe he had an emergency and needed to get to the hospital quickly. Maybe he was distracted thinking about a particular challenge he was having a hard time overcoming. 

Maybe he was excited to go see someone he hasn’t seen for a really long time. I will likely never find out what caused him to cut me off, but it really doesn’t matter. If I am going to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, I needed to show kindness and love to everyone (even those who cut me off in traffic). It is easy to show love and kindness towards others who cheer for the same team as you, enjoy the same hobbies as you, share similar beliefs and traditions as you, and hold the same political views as you. 

The greater challenge is to show that same love and kindness to those who offend us, those we don’t get along with, those whose views we don’t agree with, or those that are different from you in other ways. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of showing kindness and love towards others even in the most difficult of circumstances. 

As the Roman soldiers whipped the Savior Jesus Christ, placed a crown of thorns on his head, mocked and spit upon him, and nailed him to the cross, Jesus Christ plead, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”(Luke 23:34) It is important to remember that we are all God’s children and are loved by Him. 

We can show our true discipleship by following the perfect example of The Son of God and demonstrating kindness and love to one another even when it is difficult! In a recent sermon, Henry B. Eyring, an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, gave the advice that if we always treat others as if they were in serious trouble, you will be right half the time. 

I bear witness, that as we learn to be loving and kind towards others we will not only lift others around us, we will also experience much greater love and happiness in our own lives.