Thought for the Week with Rev Dr Norman Hamilton: Do to others what you would have them do to you

I pulled in to the side, and almost immediately a local farmer stopped to help. He went off to look for a suitable spanner, but a few minutes later two young men with a huge toolbox also stopped to help. Within a few minutes I was happily on my way again.

Good events like this happen all the time in our community. Help is willingly given to complete strangers.

Such ‘helpfulness’ is an example of an important and much neglected part of Christian thinking and teaching known as ‘common grace’ – the grace of God which reaches everybody. It is based on verses such as Matthew 5.45 where we read that God "makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust”.

My experience with the punctured tyre was yet another reminder of the need to express gratitude in everyday life. Yes, I could have called out the RAC to help, or asked a member of my family to come to my assistance. But to receive the help I needed so promptly and willingly from complete strangers was both humbling and uplifting.

And it reinforced a lesson I was taught many years ago when again I found myself being publicly embarrassed at not having my wallet in the car to pay for fuel in a petrol station, and being rescued by someone I had never met and didn’t know. When I tried to repay them for their kindness, they said (and I quote) "Just pay forward rather than try to pay me back".

In other words, in the future, when you see someone in need and can help, just do it. Or in the words of Jesus "… in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you’" (St Matthew 7.12)

There’s hardly a week goes by without there being some opportunity like this. It is all too easy to deliberately pass by on the other side (as in the parable of the good Samaritan), or simply to be so busy or preoccupied with ourselves that we don’t see the blessing waiting to be given to someone in need.