Something happened last week to make me pause and think about my stand on some issues. Without going into details of what happened, I'll give you the conclusions I came to.
If I am not witness to a conflict, I cannot make a judgement as to what happened. Even if I hear both sides of the story after the fact, there may be missing information, skewed perspectives, misrepresentation of the facts, or any number of other problems making it hard to tell what actually occurred. All I can say, is that as a Christian, I cannot allow someone's opinion to color how I treat people. I am supposed to treat each person that comes across my path with kindness. No matter what.
I think all too often I've found myself hearing about one friend's conflict with another mutual friend, and wanting to be judge and jury, convicting (the other friend), and sentencing them (to a little bit of cold shoulder). For example, I'm told that Friend A is upset with Friend B because of x, y, and z. I then find myself getting upset with Friend B, and wanting to be a little more distant with them because of it. That's not the proper response! The proper response - the response I will now actively be trying to have - is to continue to treat Friend A and Friend B with love and friendship like I always have.
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