Seek to Find the Good in Everyone
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Waves washed across my windshield as I pulled into a pond of a parking spot closest to the door of the store. “Oh, no …a meter,” I muttered. “I don’t have any change.” Instead of straining to see the hours the meter demanded to be fed, I decided to make a dash for the door and risk getting a parking ticket. Later, the clouds rolled on to the next town and I got back into my car to leave. “Oh my gosh,” I said to my daughter, as I noticed a pile of change sitting in the center compartment of my car. “I could have paid the meter and not worried about a parking ticket that whole time.” We laughed and I rolled my eyes at myself.
Our bodies are still cursed with sin. They don’t want to submit to God, but rather pursue what feels good and looks like success in this world we are living in. The problem is, the world is broken and cursed, so what it has to offer is not a complete picture of the world God created. We are meant to live in communities to encourage, remind, and raise each other up as disciples of Jesus who know and live the truth of the Gospel.
There is good in all of us. When we waste time comparing and pointing fingers, we miss opportunities to gain allies in the great commission of Christ to go and make disciples – to seek and save the lost. All of them. It’s a big job, and we were never meant to do it alone. We surely can’t do it by picking each other apart. Paul wrote to the Colossians:
He didn’t just cancel my charges and your charges, He cancelled their charges, too. You know, the one you have a valid reason to keep your distance from. The one who rubs you the wrong way and takes extra Jesus-kindness to share air with. He cancelled their debt. If we share space with others in our communities, it’s no coincidence. God is putting an army together, one heart at a time, to seek and save the lost.
It’s easy to find faults in each other. We’re all filled to the brim with them! Making an effort to see the good in everyone is easy when we like the people we’re around. But it’s very difficult when someone bullies one of our kids, is racist towards a good friend of ours, steals from us, lies to us, says something to hurt us. My favorite piece of Scripture, lately, was written by the apostle Matthew:
It reads like an ancient Biblical social media post, doesn’t it?! Behind every hurtful post or jab is a pain spurring it on. Hurt hurts. It doesn’t lay passive. Just as we pass on love when we are loved and forgiveness when we are forgiven, hurt multiplies. Choosing to see the good in all of us isn’t easy – it’s not even really a choice – it’s a decision to be obedient to God’s will in our lives and for the world, and allowing the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out. All of us.
More from this author
Fighting the Everyday Fears We Face
The Benefits of Listening, Not Just Hearing
How to Find Stability in an Unstable World
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