CH2 - Living a Higher Law: Respect

[5ft Diva]

I was struck by the idea that we respect others simply because we are good people. It has nothing to do w/ their status in life. It has nothing to do with their accomplishments in life. It has everything to do with us and how we choose to treat others.

Dr. Lund says, "Those who believe that respect must be "earned" will eventually discover that no one can be respected. The reason for this is the lack of absolute standards for evaluating who deserves to be respected. Ultimately, even self-respect will disappear if the standard is "perfection or nothing."

I have always thought of respect as a gift and never something that one had to earn. It just never made sense to me. Boy, can you imagine how long it would take to pay off that debt of lost respect or no respect - and its different for everybody so we'd be paying off tons of different kinds of debts to all sorts of people, let alone, the debt we'd accrue to our Father in Heaven. Yikes!

I also was struck by this thought - "Some will discount the entire notion of respect being given as a gift. Yet Jesus taught us to respect all men and women because that is what a good and righteous person should do regardless of whether others have earned it."

This makes sense to me. How has this concept affected you?

[Joanie]

Both my husband and I have been working on doing things for our children because we are good people not because they deserve it and it has really been eye-opening. We quite often put "price tags", if you will, on things. This has given us more freedom to do nice things for them even and especially when they don't deserve it.

This idea really resonates with me.
I love it.

[5ft Diva]

Price tags, huh? That makes sense to me.