Gena shared an article about a man who had misjudged his
employer for years, thinking him cold and impersonal. All the while, the employer (who was hard of
hearing, which is why he never returned his greetings) had been supplying him
with groceries, anonymously, every day.
The moral behind the story was not to jump to conclusions and wrongfully
judge others.
The story reminded me of something that happened to me many
years ago. I took part in a group
trouble-solving effort. During the
process, one woman told me that she had been angry with me for years because I
had snubbed her once when she was visiting our congregation. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking
about! First of all my memory is very
poor, and I couldn’t even remember her visit.
But more importantly, with all of my faults and shortcomings, I DO NOT
snub people (at least, not intentially).
I don’t know if I hadn’t heard her on that occasion, or if I had been
distracted and didn’t realize she was trying to get my attention. I honestly don’t know what happened. I apologized for hurting her feelings and
told her that I’m sure there had been some kind of misunderstanding. The point is that she had harbored ill
feelings towards me for YEARS over something that was misunderstood!
How often does this happened? I’m afraid that it probably happens all of
the time! I believe that most of us have
insecurities that rear up to make us feel slighted at times. I know that I’ve felt the same way on
occasions. “Well, so-and-so didn’t even
speak to me!” I heard a really good
lesson one time that addressed this. The
point was made that obviously, I didn’t even speak to so-and-so! Communication is a two-way street! If we get it into our head that someone is a snob
or doesn’t like us, then it is easy to look for occasions when we feel like we’ve
been ignored or mistreated. However, if
we make it a point to be friendly to that person, they will usually
reciprocate. (I do realize that this
will not always happen…there are some hard cases out there!)
I just felt compelled to share this after reading Gena’s
post. Let us made sure that we expend
our energy looking for the good in others, giving them the benefit of the
doubt, and going out of OUR way to make connections. And let us not be so “thin-skinned” as to
think that everything that happens is a reflection on how others feel about
us. Relationships require effort. Concord comes from working at it. Misunderstandings and miscommunications are
much easier than true understanding. Let’s
not take the easy road!
Proverbs 18:24 A man
that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that
sticketh closer than a brother.
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