Knowing

God has laid on my heart that I have been guilty of the very thing I dislike in others..... isn't that almost always the case with us? A few weeks ago, I went through the 4 gospel accounts looking for instances in which Jesus rebuked others for how they were acting. I think I was trying to find justification for how I was thinking. That should have been my first clue that God would end up teaching or rebuking me, but I'm a little dense sometimes. What I found in almost every instance were these words preceding Jesus' rebukes: "He knew what was in their hearts". Now, it took awhile for these words to permeate my own small mind as to what the Lord was trying to get me to understand. But I think I have it now. I "think", not I "know", because if I haven't learned it all, I have learned that God constantly makes me re-think what I "know" to be true.

I tend to think I "know" what a person's motives are when it comes to the way they act or talk even if I haven't actually talked to them about it. There, I admitted it, out loud and in print.
Let me say also that I hate it when other people think that I am someone that I wouldn't even recognize when they don't even know me. A lot of my thought life tends to be analyzing other people's beliefs and actions, as well as my own actions. In a lot of these analyses, I don't particularly "know" the people involved. Oh, they may be a part of my life, but I haven't actually taken the time to simply ask them why they do the things they do, why they say the things they say. I assign them motives instead of obeying the command to "love one another". I have believed for a long time that in order to love someone, you need to know that person. Pretty basic stuff, right? Well, if it's basic, why then do I forget to do that and instead think badly of people?

I am asking you for accountability now and asking you also to re-think what you think you "know" about the people in your lives. Take the time to do the hard things. Risk being wrong, risk rejection, risk vulnerability, to get to really know the people in your life. Let's stop assuming that we know what they're thinking and why they're thinking that way. Instead, let's follow Christ as closely as we can by knowing their hearts. People matter. Relationships matter. The way we think matters. We are given a command to love our neighbor as ourselves: let's now submit ourselves to each other and treat people the way we'd like to be treated, in all instances. I may end up being completely wrong about someone and I may end up learning more about who God is through that. I may have to completely humble myself and confess my wrong way of thinking. I may end up thinking the same way. But I will have obeyed my Lord and I will have come a little bit closer to the truth that I don't know everything. In fact, I know so darn little, it humbles me already.