My mother, who was a single parent in Singapore, employed a nanny to take care of us children while she was at work. Only many years later did I realize how profoundly my nanny had influenced my thinking and behavior. She used to tell us, "If people treat you well, treat them better than they have treated you; but if they treat you badly, treat them worse than they have treated you!"

For a long time, I did not even realize that I had been living according to this "tit for tat" philosophy. It made me calculating in my response to kindness, and vengeful in my response to unkindness.

So when I became a Christian, I found it difficult to obey Bible passages that tell us how to treat others. I didn't like the command to "be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful" (Luke 6:36) because I had the wrong focus. I was always looking at what others had done or were likely to do to me, instead of what God had done and continues to do for me. My real problem was forgetting how merciful God was to me—and it showed in the way I responded to people.

We all need to remember that we don't deserve God's mercy. Then we can be merciful to others—no matter how they treat us.  —AL  — Albert Lee