I started up my first business at the age of 34. Before that, I was in sales but became very tired of the travel.  I sold my corporate stock, bought a franchise and began a 13-year run in small business. It was hard work, long hours and, at first, quite the dip in salary with few benefits.

You thought things were fine. Your marriage was steady. Your kids are fine, your house is nice, you’ve provided for everyone’s needs (or so you thought), and you get along with your wife most of the time. Sure, there’s the blow up once in a while, sex not as often as you’d like, some pet peeves lying around, but things are mostly good. Then she leaves or tells you to.

The blood-curdling screams came from the backyard. It was my daughter Chloe’s voice. I rocketed out of the recliner where I had been drifting off into a delicious Sunday afternoon nap. In a moment, I was wide awake, heart pounding, blood pumping, mind racing with all the horrific reasons why my 5-year-old daughter would be screaming bloody murder outside.

What a week…business problems, church problems, people problems. It seems all of a sudden that nothing but problems are in my life.

Deuteronomy 6: 6-9 6 “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

We live in a culture that says treat people the way they treat you. Do unto others as they do to you. But the Bible says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That means to treat people as you want to be treated- not as you are necessarily being treated.