The Platinum Rule

I wanted to write about what I call the Platinum Rule. Everyone has heard of the Golden Rule which basically says "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or in normal language "treat others the way you would want to be treated." Well that is great advice and the world would be a much better place if all Christians actually followed this rule. Unfortunately many don't follow it. But that doesn't take anything away from the fact that it is still very good advice. But I think there is an even better rule that we could and should go by as Christians. That is what I call the Platinum Rule which is:

Treat others the way God would want you to treat them

I believe this is even better advice because we as humans make mistakes sometimes and during those times, the Golden Rule would fail to be the right thing to follow. For instance when a person is depressed, they usually want others to leave them alone. So if they are following the Golden Rule, they would leave other people alone (not talk to anyone and keep to themselves) and they would expect others not to talk to them because that's what they think they want. But as everyone knows, this is bad advice. When a person is depressed is when they need to be in the company of friends and loved ones even more, and I suspect that this is what God would want us to do. If we were the depressed person, God would want us to go talk to other people and spend time with people we care about and who care about us, or to go and help others who are less fortunate than we are so we can see that we really shouldn't be depressed. But even though we may know that's what we should do when we're depressed, that's not what we want to do. And if we're the one who knows of someone we care about who is depressed, most people would not want to bother them because they know how it is to be depressed and they know they didn't want to be disturbed by others when they were depressed. So if they were following the Golden Rule, they would leave that person alone. But if they were following the Platinum Rule, they would go spend time with that person, which is what God would want us to do.

I call this the Platinum Rule because platinum is more valuable than gold, and I believe this rule is more valuable than the Golden Rule. This is something I try to follow every day. It's difficult, more difficult than following the Golden Rule in fact. But it's also given me much more satisfaction in my life and confidence that I am living my life and behaving the way God wants me to. I encourage you to try to live by this rule yourself as well - that is if you agree of course.

So how about it - do you agree? What do you think of the Platinum Rule compared to the Golden Rule? I'd like to hear whether you agree with me and I'd like to hear from you even more if you don't agree with me and why. Post a comment and let me know! =)