Grace in the GraySample

A WILD IDEA

How differently would your conversations go if you knew your ultimate purpose was to love the other person? You might find yourself being okay with being wrong. You might even be okay when you’re misunderstood, or the other person disagrees with you.

That’s a wild idea for many of us. We tend to believe that disagreement is the mark of something dysfunctional in our relationships. Lately I’m realizing it’s a sign that something is actu­ally healthy about them.

Check out the Psalms sometime, and marvel at what it looks, and sounds like for David, a man after God’s own heart, to be in relationship with the Divine. He’s con­stantly lamenting, moaning, and questioning. That’s incredibly intriguing to me.

God even calls His chosen people Israel, which means “wrestles with God.” Maybe healthy relationships with God and people are built not on reluctant compliance but on a mutual trust that makes space for us to vent and work through it all.

I’m learning that when everyone in my life agrees with me 100 percent of the time, chances are I’m not really in a relationship with anyone but myself. It’s the same with the Lord. If the God I pray to never refutes me, then chances are I’m actually praying to a God I’ve fashioned in my own image. If the God I pray to always agrees with me, then I’m probably just praying to myself.

More times than I care to admit, the reason I make enemies out of dis­senters is that I’ve got my own unaddressed dysfunction. I know this because often when I’ve asked God to change someone else’s mind, He kindly responds, “Well, let’s start with you changing the way you view that person instead.” God has a way of calling me out, just as Jesus spoke to His followers in Matthew 7:5.

Maybe loving people we disagree with starts with realizing the problem isn’t out there but in here. Recognizing this helps us offer grace to others as well as ourselves when we disagree­—making loving each other much more important than being right.

God, forgive me for jumping to conclusions about others before listening to hear what You want to tell me about myself. I want to live so that loving You and loving others is always my first priority. Amen.