I’ve been thinking about something for a while now. Something about which the Lord has been both convicting me and teaching me. I am not sure I’ll be able to write it all out very well, but I’m going to give it a try.
Once upon a time, there was a person I knew (going to be vague purposely) who left many different people with some pretty bad memories when they left this earth. Things were never made right and the harmony and love that was hoped for was never realized.
I spent quite a few years very upset about this. Not necessarily for my sake but for others that I love very much. My opinion about that person was extremely negative for many years.
And then one day, not that long ago, I had a good memory come to mind of that person. A really good memory of a time shared together. And when I remembered that, other good memories started to surface. They had been deeply buried underneath all the hurt and angst that surrounded their last years.
And these memories taught me something: People just aren’t a “cut and dried” good or bad, like we’d like them to be. We tend to assign labels (even if it’s in our own minds) as to what we believe them to be. But it’s just not that simple.
Some are worse than others. We cannot deny that. Some are more challenging than others to love, for sure. But we can’t control them, can we? We can only control our own thoughts and actions. And that’s what today’s post is about.
We want people to be a certain way. And when they aren’t, we tend to write them off. Or we fight with them. Or we are discontent and we complain. There are many ways we show that we are not happy with the way someone is.
But I am beginning to understand the importance of accepting people where they are.
This doesn’t mean we don’t pray for them. It doesn’t mean we stop trying to make our relationships better. It doesn’t mean we do not confront sin or worldliness because of our love for someone.
What it does mean is that we love them despite their faults. We stop nitpicking and fussing. We lower our expectations and we stop basing our love for someone on those expectations (which are often impossible for someone to fully meet).
It means we stop trying to change them. Rather, we pray for them and, instead of harsh criticism, our conversations of confrontation are filled with our love for them.
And…we stop allowing our peace to be destroyed by them. Because our peace is to come from Jesus, not from people.
And I have had to think…if God would have only offered His love and salvation to me when I was perfect, I would not be saved today. Instead, God reached out to me while I was still a sinner (Romans 5:8). We love Him because He first loved us (I John 4:19).
Perhaps it is time that we start following God’s example in His love towards us. It’s time to eliminate the conditions. It’s time to stop getting so offended. It’s time to stop trying to fix people.
Instead we need to love them right where they are at, as God has demonstrated for us.
After all, am I that easy to love? Are you? If we are honest, we all will admit that we aren’t.
People just aren’t cut and dried. None of us are.
So instead of focusing on the things that drive us crazy, why not focus on the positive things we appreciate? The good memories rather than the bad memories?
Most people in our lives have some qualities for which we can be thankful. Why do we so easily focus on the negative??
Over the course of the past years, I have learned so much about having grace for others. And I have grown in this area. But God has been showing me lately that it’s not just having outward grace, while inwardly being annoyed or frustrated. It’s about both outward and inward grace towards those whom I don’t understand; Towards those that act in ways that frustrate or confuse me.
Everyone is shaped by so many things. My life experience is not your life experience. We often do things for reasons even we don’t understand. And so does everyone else.
People just aren’t always going to be how you want them to be. For example…I will always talk too much. I don’t want to and I try to work on it. But, so often, I go home from church or some event and I think…now why can’t I just be quiet?
But the people that are annoyed by my “over-talking” have no idea that I am actually annoyed with myself, too!
I need so much grace… I’d rather guess you do, too. So why not offer that same grace we need to the people around us?
People are struggling with sin issues and going through hard things, just as we are. They, too are responding or reacting in a certain way because it’s simply a personality trait they struggle with; or perhaps it’s due to a sin (which they may or may not be aware of yet) and God will show them eventually, just as He faithfully reveals our sin to us; It may be that they have had an experience in life that is causing their response; or any number of other things that affect how someone talks and acts. Just like us.
We all have different struggles and challenges. We all have blind spots. We all, if we are sincere believers, desire to be more like Christ. Unfortunately, we do it so pathetically imperfectly. That flesh is a real foe for most of us.
So perhaps it is time that we stop being annoyed and frustrated and just accept people where they are. Perhaps it is past time to offer genuine grace to others—the same grace that God offers to us and that we desire from others towards ourself.
The person I spoke about above chose not to reconcile with those that loved them so dearly. The situation felt utterly impossible. And there will always be great sorrow surrounding the whole thing. But in the midst of this, God brought to mind something that was good.
I want to be a person that can understand that life just can’t be broken down into “good” or “bad”. It’s so much more complex than that.
And that people aren’t all good or all bad. We are all a mumble jumble of both. (FYI: Yes, I do believe we are all depraved sinners in need of a Savior. I am referring here to the average person, both saved and unsaved to which God, through His amazing “common grace”, grants positive personality traits that are beneficial to humankind.)
I used strong words in the title of this post. Revolutionize and Restore are both words that bring to mind big change. I used those words because I believe if we begin to approach our relationships with an attitude of acceptance, rather than an attitude of dissatisfaction, it will revolutionize and restore our relationships.
I believe if we begin to love someone without condition, instead of waiting for them to love us according to our expectations, it will revolutionize and restore that relationship.
According to scripture, we are to live according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-2). It really is this that sets us apart from the unsaved in this day-to-day world. And one of the ways we can live according to the Spirit is by becoming more like God in how we approach our relationships.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
thank you so much for those words I really needed to hear them
So glad if this encouraged you! Thank you for sharing that with me. ❤️