There are some people who seem to put every small detail about their daily lives online, posting in social media for all the world to see what they have been doing or experiencing. If you had seen their various posts and then bumped into them later in the day, you would know without them saying anything further why they seemed to be more joyful, or more depressed, than you would have normally expressed. While chances are pretty good that they haven’t put absolutely everything about their day online, they have given you enough information to explain their disposition when you saw them.
Most people aren’t like that. Most people don’t post regularly online, and they certainly don’t broadcast what is going on in their personal lives. As such, we have no idea what that person may have experienced in that day when we bump into them. We don’t know if their cat died that morning, or if their spouse said something particularly hurtful, or if their child was just diagnosed with some difficult ailment. Therefore, when we do have some interaction with that person later in the day, and their behavior is a bit off, we don’t know why. And if it is someone that we have never met before, we might simply assume that their foul mood is an inherent part of their personality.
The challenge that we all face is we tend to want to draw a conclusion about someone sooner rather than later, taking the information that is easily available to us to form an opinion, which then becomes very difficult to modify. There is no requirement for us about how quickly we must form that opinion, but experience tells us that we tend to do it almost immediately. So, if someone is surly or harsh when we first meet them, then that becomes who we think that they are in our minds. When we form those opinions, we seldom leave room for the critical unknown details. We automatically presume that we know what we need to know about them.
Humility is meant to be one of the defining characteristics of a Christian. When you spend your life walking with the all-knowing God, you should be comfortable recognizing that you don’t know everything. This doesn’t mean that you cannot draw conclusions about others, but it does mean that, as a part of that process, you must recognize that one of the categories of information that is drawn upon is a bag labeled “Things I don’t know about this person.” And the longer that you’ve been a Christian, the larger that bag should be, which necessarily should introduce a level of grace and kindness into our interactions with someone. Humble awareness of our own limitations should create in us a default setting that resists judgement and leaves room for love and mercy.
But here’s the kicker – God knows everything about us, every wart, every character flaw, every sinful inclination, and yet he still loved us enough to send his only begotten Son to die on the cross so that we would have a path to reconciliation with Him. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And that is the behavior that Christians are called to model, loving others sacrificially so that when the truth of Christ is presented to them, they might see that God’s way is the only way. That others too might then be humble enough to accept that they need to repent, turn away from their way of living, and embrace life following the One who knows everything. So make room for what you don’t know by embracing the One who knows everything, and follow his lead by loving others – whether you think they deserve it or not.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron