Living above the line

We have a problem in our house with the saying ‘do to others as you would have them do to you’, because some of us are waiting until we are treated the way we want to before we treat others the way they want to. 

It just doesn’t work like that. It’s risky business this love stuff. Living in community successfully is really hard. There’s no guarantee of reciprocity if we act with grace and love. In fact, it’s likely we will rarely be treated the way we commit to treating others. But we aren’t doing it for them, we are doing it because of who lives in us.

There’s a difference between gritting our teeth and practicing sacrificial unselfish living, and truly living a life of love. Living above the line places the emphasis on seeing past our personal sacrifice, to a clearer way of being - seeking to actually place another’s good above our own.

Living above the line is not just saying and being sorry, as this is more often us feeling shame over what we’ve done and wanting another person to say it’s excused. Rather the admission that I was wrong and I hurt you, correctly focuses our loving repentance in a way that restores relationship.

Living above the line in the way of love costs us what we cannot keep - and gains us what we cannot loose.