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“What’s in it for me?” is a question often echoed from one person to another. A stranger to a stranger. One friend to another. One loved one to a loved one. What’s in it for me? Seems like an important question to ask. It’s a dog eat dog society. Look out for numero uno. Only respect those who respect you first. Survival of the fittest. Isn’t this how we’re supposed to act?
We’ve all heard these before and even said them ourselves. This is nothing new to us. I can’t help but wonder why we treat everyone else so poorly when we desire to be loved and treated fairly. We want to be respected but only offer it when respected first. We want to be honored but only honor others when we feel like it. This logic is severely flawed. If we all thought and acted this way the world would have no respect in it, no honoring each other and no love. We’d all be miserable!
We need to honor others even when they don’t deserve it.
We honor veterans for their service to our country. We honor the Police and Firemen and woman for their sacrifice. And not to take anything away from them, but we need to show honor when it is not expected. There was a time we’d say, “I’d be honored to help you” or “That would be my honor”. When did these go out of style? When I was growing up I was taught to help seniors if it looked like they needed a hand loading their groceries, returning a shopping cart or grabbing something high up. Do you remember that scene in Gran Torino when Clint is watching the teenage boys walk right past the old lady who just dropped her groceries. Instead of helping they pretend to be doing a sexual act. And they thought they were cool. Is this the future of honor we have to look forward to?
“Honor is maximizing the value of something or someone. Dishonor is to minimize the value of something or someone. To treat them as plain, common or ordinary.” ~Shawn Kennedy
Here are some questions we should ask ourselves:
- Am I honoring others when it’s inconvenient for me?
- Am I being willing to forgive and move forward?
- Am I allowing others to enjoy things I might not enjoy?
- Am I honoring others by fighting for them?
- Am I being patient with them?
- Am I only honoring them when they honor me?
- Am I honoring myself?
- Did I honor God with that action?
- Am I honoring ____ (wife, girlfriend, friend, child, loved one) by giving them the freedom to be different?
Sometimes those we love the most we honor the least. Those closest to us are sometimes the ones we treat poorly because of familiarity. It can be tougher to honor family than a stranger. In 1 John 4:20 it says that whoever claims to love God but hates his brother or sister is a liar. You can’t say you love God and not love them because God’s second commandment is to love others. (Mark 12:31) His first commandment is to love God. You could say that if we love ourselves over God and others than we have an honor issue. If numero uno is ourselves it’s because we think we are more important than everybody else. By honoring others we’re honoring God, and one way to honor God is to honor others.
Sometimes we forget the balance of honoring ourselves too. To honor God and others doesn’t me we stop taking care of ourselves. If we push ourselves to the point of exhaustion we will be no help to anybody else. They just might end up rescuing us from the ER. You can honor yourself by building confidence, working on your character, staying fit, managing your finances and learning how have a healthy relationship. By honoring yourself you can honor God and others.
“Honor isn’t just something we think about but something that we do.” ~Shawn Kennedy
Sometimes we love the thought but fail to put it into action. When we do this we’re just as guilty as those who do nothing. There are enough bystanders watching and waiting for someone to act on honor. There are so many books and research on how to have a relationship, parent a child or grow up that focus on the symptoms instead of the heart. If we change how we act but not the source it will be short lived.
As a nation we have left God behind. Our forefathers knew how important it is to honor God. I think when most picture a Christian they see someone preaching fire and brimstone. Take that last part out and replace it with a loving God who laid out the best way for us to live our lives. We have strayed from his plan and wonder why the world is a mess. Maybe the best lie told is that God doesn’t care and Christians are hateful. When in fact we’re all in the same boat in need of love, to be honored and give honor.
Honor God, Honor Others and Honor Yourself
2nd Photo by http://dribbble.com/rcrd
Great post John! I could say a number of things in response, but will avoid writing a post to your post. 😉 Our culture promotes self as being #1, at the expense of others. I see this as an advertiser, as well as a man of faith. This is the very reason why we’re bringing up our children to not only respect others, but put others before themselves. It’s easy to talk the talk, but walking the walk is something completely different and it’s our desire to live that out before them.
Thanks John! Our culture has forgotten God even though our forefathers who founded this nation relied heavily on Him. Good for you bringing up your children to respect and honor others, and walking the walk. If you wrote a post to my post I’m sure it would be a good read. 🙂
What a beautiful post. Honor does seem to be disappearing from the collective conscious when once it was something we did unconsciously because we were compassionate human beings. The world has become “me, me, me” and it makes me sad. Thank you for a good reminder to honor myself and those around me. And even more importantly, to set a good example to others by being of service.
Thanks Shannon! The world certainly has become this way and it’s really our own loss. I remember watching that movie “Pay it Forward” and thinkinig what a great concept and if we all did it that sense of community and love would be awesome.
Great lesson here! I strive to live this way day by day, thinking too far ahead is foolish for me. I will admit sometimes it is hard honoring others when I feel they wouldn’t do the same in return but who knows maybe that nice gesture will change their mood or soften their hardened heart.
Honoring others isn’t easy. Especially the ones that are hard to love. It’s only natural to think of ourselves first but that’s where God’s love comes in and redirects our hearts.
This is a great post and I enjoyed reading it. I remember I had an issue with a friend of mine, who is no longer a friend. He chosen it that way and quite ruthlessly told me that (basically kicked me out when I came to visit him after about two years of not seeing each other). Honestly, it made me mad and I was thirsty for revenge. But then I stopped and asked myself, what would Jesus do in such a situation? Would He hate a person for something like this? It took me some time to get used to it, but it helps a lot to start saying these questions to myself. It calms me down and push the hatred away, even as you said, some people do not deserve it.
Thanks for sharing this. You’ve just described a situation that many of us have experienced and have even thought the exact same thing. This is why we need Christ. Without him we’re awful and with him we’re able to love our neighbor.