Living Like the Sun/Son

In the early 1300's the Persian poet, Hafiz, penned these words, "Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky." We have a lot in common with the Sun. We both exist to provide light to this world we live in. If the Sun doesn't expect anything in return, why do we? After reading this quote, I started thinking about the last 10 or so times I got mad at someone or had my feelings hurt. What caused me to get upset? Every instance was a little different, but basically I was not being treated the way I thought I deserved to be treated. Something was not going my way or I was forced to adjust my behavior to accomadate someone else's mistake. Jesus tells us there are two rules we must follow. #1 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And #2, love your neighbor as yourself. If you do both of these things to the very best of your ability, everything else will fall into place. Two little rules. Why in the world do we have so much trouble with them? Why would we rather read 100 Things You Can Do to Please God  than follow these two simple rules? Simple.....because to love like that means we have to ignore ourselves. Ignore our wants, our desires, our feelings. And lets face it, we don't want to do that. I mean, we are good people, right? We try to do nice things for other people. How dare someone not speak to me in the hallway at church! How dare they give all the credit to so-and-so when it is obvious that I worked on it way harder than they did! How dare my husband ask me to run errands for him tomorrow! Doesn't he realize everything I do around here? Nobody in this house appreciates me! I give and give and not a single thank you! Do they think those clothes just washed themselves? I can't believe how slow these people are driving! I am in a hurry! They need to take their "Sunday drive" somewhere else.....How much happier would we be if we just stopped expecting appreciation, recognition, and praise from other people? If we tried to live life the way Jesus commanded us to do? Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky.