IT RECENTLY CAME TO PASS in my public school classroom that we were discussing the Golden Rule. Having just returned from winter break, we began talking about how habits work—how they’re formed, how they’re broken—and what habits we each desired to build or break in our lives. The Golden Rule, I argued, is perhaps the most important habit of all. 

This led to further discussion about the meaning of the Golden Rule. I wasn’t sure what my students would know. But, sure enough, much of the language my students used when I asked them to describe the rule could have been pulled right from the pages of the New Testament (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, Matthew 22:37–40, Luke 10:25–37). We ended up settling our discussion around a common summary: “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27, NIV).

Though our conversation ended there—we had, after all, our curricular world history lesson to attend to—my mind returned later that day to this idea of loving one’s neighbors. 

First, I thought about what defines someone as my neighbor. I settled on the idea that my neighbor is the “near person” or the one I often find myself around. Certainly, then, as a disciple of Jesus and a classroom teacher, I am called to love my students and colleagues as I would myself like to be loved, according to the Golden Rule. 

But as I continued to ponder, God revealed to me that this calling challenges us to embrace so much more than what I had previously labeled as just an important daily habit. He opened my eyes to see that this calling invites us to embrace a daily opportunity… 

I began to see that as a teacher, I have the opportunity each day to love my students as I myself would wish to be loved. I can ask my students about their weekends and genuinely listen to the answers. I can push myself away from my computer between classes and stand in the hallway as students go by, making myself available for eye contact, a smile, or a friendly hello.

And what about my colleagues? I tend to wander away from the opportunity to encourage and share life with the people who teach in my hallway. I can get caught up in the demands of grading, planning, deadlines, and the like. Yet the Golden Rule points me beyond the mere self, inviting me to see the people around me as beloved and worthy of God’s total attention. With this God’s-eye view, I am compelled toward actions like connecting in the copy room, sharing a resource after the faculty meeting, or just silently praying that the teacher I’m passing in the hallway is given the strength and well-being today that I know I also need as we face the challenges of our jobs.

So, contrary to my initial assertion that the Golden Rule was the most important habit of all, I now see this calling to love my neighbors as myself as less of an act of intention and effort and instead, more of a way of life, a way of being and seeing. Now I think, I get to be neighbors with these folks—I get to be in community with them. 

Dave Stuart Jr. is a husband and dad who teaches high school students in a small town. He writes about teaching students toward long-term flourishing at DaveStuartJr.com.