Author: A Little Faith Lift…Finding Joy Beyond Rejection
www.alittlefaithlift.com
AWSA (Advanced Writers & Speakers Assoc.)
The sophomore sat in my class, day one, and shared that when she tried out for middle school track, a teammate told her that she was fat. Another spoke about how classmates treated her after social services visited her home, and the claim of negligence spread throughout the community. Both girls were judged for falling short. But short of what?
We understand their pain, but what about the ones who had offended them? Aren’t we all guilty? Oh, maybe we don’t say it out loud, but we sure say it to ourselves. We fail to understand that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night might be a single mother who was rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and run back to her night job. We forget that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested man who cannot make change correctly is a stressed, 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester. As for that weird-looking bum? The one begging for money in the same spot every day (I mean, seriously! Why doesn’t he have a job? Everyone is looking for employees.). Do we stop to consider that he might be a slave to heroin, an addiction we can imagine only in our worst nightmares?
We roll our eyes at the old couple walking slowly through the store aisles, blocking our hurried-shopping progress, and we fail to recognize that maybe, just maybe, they are savoring this moment because, based on the biopsy report she received last week, this will be the last year they go shopping together. We stare at the obese, secretly wondering why they don’t walk instead of using the store’s mobile device, not even considering that perhaps they eat for emotional comfort due to the abuse they received as children.
The point is, it doesn’t matter what makes people different from us; what matters is that we arrogantly dare to look at them differently than God looks at them. Only if we never have judged someone can we claim innocence.
The other evening, Dave and I were with another couple, and we were talking about difficult people. The husband (“Ron”) shared a story about delivering a package to a company in which a sourpuss woman worked. Sure enough, Ron showed up near closing time and got an earful from the employee who was ticked that she had to process the package.
Instead of responding in an equally hateful manner, the next morning, Ron picked up a special coffee drink he found out the woman liked and surprised her with it. He said that he assumed she had had a bad day and might enjoy a pick-me-up. Every time he saw her after that, she greeted him with a smile and a hug.
Ron could easily have judged her attitude. After all, she had judged him, and he was just doing his job and didn’t deserve to be treated so hatefully. She had no right to unload on him when he had done nothing except what his job required. He chose not to pay back. He chose not to judge.
Deciding to give someone the benefit of the doubt is the way Jesus would have us handle this situation. Every situation. 1 Peter 3:8 is a verse we all should remember: “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”
Not a bad place to start.