Sometimes
with people,
you find what you look for.
What if you questioned your assumptions?
What if you asked questions?
And listened.
It’s easier and faster to assume you’ve got someone figured out based on your first impression of them.
It’s easier and faster to assume you know someone’s motivations based on your interpretation of their words and actions.
It’s easier and faster to assume you have no blind spots or biases when it comes to evaluating another person or situation.
It’s easier and faster to write someone off as not worth your time or a second thought. as less or an idiot…or a bigot or a zealot.
It’s easier and faster to dehumanize someone by categorizing them with an adjective or labeling them with a derogatory term or encapsulating them with a pithy meme or quote.
What if you’re wrong? What does that say about your character? Do you care?
People are inconvenient.
They take time. and effort. and sometimes risk and and humility and vulnerability.
But consider this. People take the faster, easier path when they encounter you.
If you are a person of faith, consider this. If you take the easier, faster path with people in your life – whether in fleeting encounters with strangers, casual interactions with acquaintances or the hard work of closer relationships – are you missing something? What would God have you do in each of those opportunities? What would you do differently if you prayed about it?
Would you choose easy and fast? or risk and humility and vulnerability?
Dismissal? Or an opportunity to be an encouragement and a witness and a testament for the grace and unconditional love God has freely given to you?
Will you attempt to act and speak on your own or will you ask the Holy Spirit to guide and equip you to be His hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice?
Don’t miss a blessing in disguise because you’ve dismissed the possibility that God could use THAT person to speak into your life.
Don’t miss an opportunity to be a blessing in someone’s life for the sake of an easier, faster path to your own goals and comfort zone.
#SeePeople and #edify because everyone is #JustaDifferentKindofBroken