There’s a Chinese story about a woman who comes to a doctor with an odd request, she wants him to give her some poison to kill her mother in law. The doctor refuses, but the woman persists. Finally the doctor leaves and goes to a back room, coming back out with some herbs in a dark black bottle.
He gives instructions to the woman, “I cannot give you fast acting poison, as people would suspect you. Instead, sprinkle these herbs in your mother in law’s food every day over a period of a month. During this time, you must treat her very well, so that people do not suspect you when she dies.” The woman leaves with the dark herbs and begins sprinkling them in her food every meal, just a little bit each time.
But before the month is out, the woman returns to the doctor and says, “Doctor, please, will you help me reverse the effects of the poison? I’ve been giving my mother in law the herbs that you gave me, but I have grown very fond of her actually now that I’ve been treating her well. I don’t want her to die. Please help me.” The doctor laughed and told the woman that the herbs were simply packed with vitamins that would promote health – the real difference came in how she was treating her mother in law.
This week we are challenged to take Jesus’ words from Matthew 7:12 “Whatever you wish others would do to you, do also to them,” to heart. You may even find that they create a change in your own heart about the people that you are serving. After all, when we do unto others as we would have them do to us, we are doing what Jesus did for us – and amazingly, His service to us didn’t make Him love us any less – but showed the greatest love we could ever imagine.
Jesus didn’t have to be tricked into showing us love. He did it on His own volition, knowing exactly what His love would require. And yet He did it anyway, knowing that love would grow as a result of His love shown to us. Find a piece of that love in serving someone this week.